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Football Season is Over
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Literature Text
Football Season is Over
By Hiatt Werling
Week One – Double Negative
On the first Sunday of the 2012 NFL season, I'm in Nevada. My Land Art class and I are on a field trip. The class consists only of Kerry, the teacher, and five students, including me. We had just finished winding our way through Utah, and now we're in the Nevada desert, about sixty miles north of Las Vegas. Our white Prescott College van is driving towards a land art piece called Double Negative; two huge trenches dug into the earth on either side of a canyon.
The Pittsburgh Steelers are set to play their first game of the season tonight in Denver against the Broncos and their new quarterback Peyton Manning. My class had discussed whether or not we should camp out tonight or stay at a hotel in Vegas. I hope we'll stay at a hotel so I can watch the end of the game, assuming we make it in time. Throughout the day my thoughts keep drifting back to the game. I'm giddy with the excitement of a new season, filled with the hope that always refreshes itself at the start of each autumn.
To get to the artwork we pull off the Interstate and drive down a dirt road, the road barely distinguishable from the rest of the desert. The road becomes less and less developed and our van, which doesn't have four-wheel drive, begins to sway, until finally we get stuck in the sand, unable to go forward or reverse.
We all pile out of the van. It's over a hundred degrees. We spend the next two hours trying to get the van free. We deflate the tires. We take all the weight out of the van. We dig the tires out. We build runways out of sticks and rocks to help the tires gain traction. Our teacher begins to reverse with all five of us students pushing the front of the van, inch by inch, until it once again gets stuck. We set the whole thing up again. No one's really worried, but as the sun continues to char us, I think we all have the same tiny inkling of a thought in the back of our minds: we could die out here.
Finally we give up and call a tow truck. Kerry and a student walk back towards the Interstate to flag it down. The rest of us sit in the shade of the van. The sun is finally beginning to set.
It turns out that the tow truck can't help us; it doesn't have four-wheel drive either. But the driver gives us the number of someone with a truck that does. We're flushed with relief when we finally see the huge F-150 barreling down the road. The name of the man in the truck is Dennis. He hooks the van to the truck and pulls it onto solid ground. Three people ride back to the interstate in the cab of the truck while me and two other guys ride in the bed. The two of them ride with their shirts off, which they had abandoned when the heat became too much. We're all relieved to finally be on our way.
With all of us back in the van, the teacher begins driving down the right lane of the Interstate at about 45 miles an hour, to go easy on the deflated tires. Finally, we reach a gas station and pull off. It's completely dark now, and the night air is humid and enveloping. I stand off to the side, drinking a Mr. Pibb as I watch Kerry put air back into the tires. All the while, I keep thinking to myself that this whole little ordeal will all be worth it if the Steelers win. That'll make it all okay.
We decide to spend the night in Vegas, as we all feel like we deserve it after our adventure. We get to the Plaza Hotel around 10:00 at night. We walk in through the casino, and we hurry past the sports book. I try to catch a glimpse of the Steelers-Broncos score amongst the alternating rows of orange and green numbers, but can't find it. We finally check into our rooms. As one of my classmates jumps in the shower, all of us preparing to go down to Fremont Street and have some fun, I hurriedly turn on ESPN. My eyes are glued to the crawl on the bottom of the screen until the score finally comes up: Broncos 31, Steelers 19.
Soon it's my turn to shower. As the hot water washes away the dirt I accumulated in the desert, I mourn softly. 0-1, I keep thinking. 0-1. Any football fan hates to get the season started on the wrong foot. But as I prepare to go down into the system-shocking lights of Vegas, I force myself to make peace with the loss. There's still a lot of football to be played, I think. It's a long season. We'll be fine.
Week Two – Betting Pool
An old friend of my family in Albuquerque runs a betting pool every NFL season, and this year she invited me to join. You pay ten dollars per week, and you pick a winner for each of that week's games. If you pick the most winners, you win everyone's ten dollars for that week, about $400 in total. It makes each game more exciting, the knowledge that maybe this game could be what swings the possession of a small fortune in your favor.
On Sunday afternoon the Steelers are playing the New York Jets in Pittsburgh. Luckily, my local CBS affiliate is showing the game, so I can at least watch it on my 11'' TV instead of on an inconsistent stream on my laptop. The Steelers take the lead against the Jets and, unlike their game against the Broncos, don't relinquish it, winning 27-10. After the game, I turn off the TV and relax alone in my room, basking in the glow of the victory. This is the feeling I was missing through the spring and summer, the feeling I didn't realize how much I was longing for until I had it again; the knowledge that my team won. That pure, direct joy that will color the next seven days. Each game is a coin flip, either your team wins or loses. Good or bad, no middle ground. And when it's good, you have this high that stays with you, the comfort of knowing that everything, for this week, is as good as it can possibly be. Until next Sunday, when it's time to flip the coin again.
I do well in the pool this week. I have a chance to win the pot on the last game of the week, the Monday Night game between the Broncos and Falcons. I find myself rooting for Denver to win and for the combined score to be 57 or more. I come close, but I don't win. Regardless, I can see why people like gambling.
Week Three – Shattered Bowl
During week three of the season, I'm on a week long vacation from school. My two roommates have both gone away for the break, so I have the house to myself. That Sunday, the Steelers are playing the Raiders in Oakland. The Raiders look like one of the worst teams in the league, and after the Steelers' success against the Jets, I'm taking it for granted that they'll win. I make a bowl of ramen noodles and settle in to watch the game on my laptop. At first, my confidence seems well placed, as the Steelers take a 24-14 lead. But then the Raiders score a touchdown and narrow the lead to 24-21. The Steelers score another touchdown, seemingly ending the potential crisis, but then the Raiders match the touchdown, and on their next drive score a field goal, tying the game at 31. This was supposed to be a gift, a free victory, and here I was, sweating bullets through the fourth quarter. I begin to notice a sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach, a feeling that says, "we're going to lose this game, and even if we win I'm not going to feel good about it."
The Steelers get the ball back with an opportunity to retake the lead, but are forced to punt. As the Raiders retake possession, and the likelihood of the Steelers losing becomes unavoidable, an anger starts building in me. A blind, childish anger that I can't ignore. Or, more accurately, I could very easily ignore but choose not to. For longer than I've been alive, the flagship of the Steelers franchise has been their rock steady defense. When I was growing up, I couldn't always count on the offense to come through, but I knew the defense could always come up with that big stop. For the last couple of years, many sports experts have been predicted that the Steelers defense would regress, that the players anchoring the defense had grown too old. But for the last couple seasons, the defense managed to prove them wrong. But the projections for the Steelers' 2012 season, and their performance in this game, make me think that this might be the year the defense lets us down.
As my frustration simmers, the Steelers manage to force the Raiders into a 3rd and 10. I think, "If they can just make one stop on this play, they might be able to salvage this game." And then I watch helplessly as they give up a 15-yard pass and a first down.
My anger spikes. I grab the now empty ceramic bowl that had held my ramen noodles, wheel around, and hurl it onto my cement floor. It shatters into several large shards and many, many smaller pieces, scattering over the floor, into my closet and under the doorjamb.
Sure enough, the Raiders kick the winning field goal as time expires. I can't muster up the energy to be mad anymore. Instead I just close the stream's window on my laptop and walk, trance-like, to the furnace closet, where I grab a broom. I stand above the particles that once comprised the bowl, leaning on the broom handle, tired and defeated, almost as if I would collapse if the broom weren't there, which I probably would. I begin to sweep up as reality sets in: we're 1-2.
Week Four – Bye Week
I get so wrapped up in sports that a loss can stick with me to the point where I don't even want to watch the next game, afraid that I'll get punched in the gut again. This is the feeling I have following the Steelers' loss to the Raiders, but luckily, week four is the Steelers' bye week. I have until next Sunday to recuperate.
My roommates come home today in preparation to resume school tomorrow. I don't tell them that they're returning home to a kitchen with one less bowl.
Week Five – Keystone
In week five, the Steelers are playing their Keystone state rivals, the Philadelphia Eagles, on Sunday afternoon. I wake up at 12:00 noon. I love watching football, but not enough to get up early on a Sunday. I slither out of bed and get on my laptop. I never really wake up properly until I take a shower, but on Sundays I always have to find out the scores of all the early games first. It's always fun to check in on the slate of morning games as they all head into the fourth quarter. It's like having seven or eight stories to catch up on when I wake up, and I can cherry pick the entertaining, competitive games and flip around those on the TV.
But when I log onto ESPN.com, I'm surprised to find the score of the Steelers-Eagles game among the others. I thought for sure the game was being played in the afternoon, but instead it's already almost over. It's midway through the fourth quarter, and the Steelers are up 13-7. I turn on my TV just in time to see the Eagles score a touchdown, taking a 14-13 lead.
I'm not even really awake yet, and I'm trying to grasp the idea of the Steelers starting the season 1-3. But I stand and watch as the Steelers use the last seven minutes of the game to drive down the field. They put themselves in field goal position with just seconds to go. I wait in a tense hush until I see the field goal go up, and in. I lean against the post of my bunk bed, burying my face in the top quilt, a wave of relief washing over me. We're 2-2. I get in the shower and wake up.
Week Six – The Master
It's Thursday, October 11, one day before my 21st birthday. The Steelers are playing the Titans in Nashville on Thursday Night Football. The Thursday Night games are on NFL Network, which I don't get on my basic cable package, so I would have to watch the game on my laptop. But I instead decide to skip the game and go see a movie with my friend Kat. I don't think I'll miss much by not watching the game; the Titans are one of the worst teams in the league, the Steelers shouldn't have any problem with them. "Then again," I think, "that's what I thought about the Raiders game."
I pick Kat up at her house and together we drive to the theater in Prescott Valley. We spend the car ride conversing about our classes, our social lives and other surface topics. I met Kat my first semester at Prescott College. I spent a year cultivating a crush on her, and then asked her on a date at the beginning of our sophomore year, a date at the same movie theater we were going to now. She agreed to come to the movie with me, but didn't realize I had intended it to be a date. As we sat next to each other in the theater, I reached across the armrest and held her hand, and she finally realized my intention. She held my hand in return, but something in her body language, the way she shifted and stiffened, told me that this wasn't what she wanted. Sure enough, after I dropped her off that night, we exchanged texts and she told me that she just wanted to be friends. This could have made things weird between us, but Kat never made me feel awkward about it, and so I don't feel awkward.
We drive down Highway 69, the road that brings most people visiting Prescott into the city limits, until we reach the movie theater in Prescott Valley. The building is painted in bold shades of blue, red, green and orange, formed into rays that seem to be coming out of the ground. The first time I ever drove in to Prescott, I saw this theater and thought to myself, "That's it. Those colors are Arizona."
The movie we see is called The Master. It's about an aimless drunkard who gets pulled into a cult, developing a friendship with the charismatic cult leader who has more sway over the drunkard's life than the drunkard even realizes. As Kat and I leave the theater, we both agree that the movie was good, but confusing.
I drop Kat off at her house and drive home. I remember the game and log onto ESPN.com, eager to see the results of what I expect to be a comfortable Steelers victory. But when the page loads, I see the final score: Titans 26, Steelers 23. I shoot up out of my chair and pace back and forth in shock. I slowly begin to process the defeat, and the fact that the Steelers are 2-3. I've seen the Steelers win twelve games three different seasons, and go to the Super Bowl twice, in the past four years, and they haven't had a losing season since 2003. But it looks like this season might be different.
At the beginning of September I got into the habit of taking long walks at midnight on weekends. It takes me away from the computer I spend almost all my free time on and gives me an opportunity to get some exercise, listen to music, and clear my head. Tonight it's raining slightly, and I consider staying in, but I need to push on. I walk through the drizzle, striding along Sheldon Street, past gas stations and motels until I reach Gurley and turn right, trotting down into Prescott's town square. The more I walk, the more I begin to accept the loss. I stare intently at my watch until it rolls over to midnight, Friday, October 12, my 21st birthday. I'm quite happy with my choice to come to Prescott College, but I'm still bothered by nagging realizations that my life isn't quite what I want it to be, like my minimal amount of friends, or my persistent fear of asking girls out. But as I near home, I lean against a rail and put my hand on my chest, feeling my heart through my dampened shirt. I look up at the stars and say to myself, "Twenty-one's going to be different."
Week Seven – Hold on Hope
The Steelers are playing the Bengals tonight in Cincinnati on Sunday Night Football. Last week's loss to the Titans still stings, and my expectations for this season have been considerably lowered, but I still watch the game. The Bengals drive the ball down the throat of the Steelers defense on their first drive, and in the second quarter they have a 14-3 lead. I begin to lose hope, but the Steelers wrestle control away from the Bengals through the rest of the game and win 24-17.
I'm happy to see the Steelers win, but there's a small, nagging trouble in the back of my mind. It's stressful for a fan to live and die for their team year in and year out, and to be honest, there was a tiny part of me that wanted the Steelers to have an off season this year. That way, I wouldn't have to spend four months of my year worrying over each game and the playoff implications that come with it. In the same way a win colors the following week with contentedness and joy, a loss is a pall that hangs over you. And when your team is a contender, that pall is magnified. Suddenly every loss could mean missing out on a bye week, or losing the division, or not making the playoffs at all. It can put a lot of strain on one's emotional state. That's what I've been through each of the past five, ten seasons, and the thought of checking out early and being able to relax seems a little enticing.
But I know down that that's not what I really want. Any football fan needs to have hope. If you don't have hope, if you don't want to see your team win, then there's no point in watching. The Steelers are now 3-3. .500. They have now followed each of their losses with a win. Each time I've wanted to give up on them, they've managed to draw me back in. The season's been completely up and down so far, a roller coaster. And the only thing for me to do is strap in and keep on riding.
Week Eight – Throwback
This Sunday the Steelers are playing the Redskins in Pittsburgh, and before the game it was announced that the Steelers would be wearing their new alternate uniforms for this season. They're throwback uniforms from 1934, the Steelers' second year of existence, and the jerseys are saturated in alternating black and yellow horizontal stripes, with the number encased in white boxes. When I wake up at one in the afternoon, I find I've already been texted by two different people asking me what's up with the Steelers' uniforms. I smile. I like that they see these crazy bumblebee uniforms and their first thought is to ask me about them.
Arizona doesn't observe daylight savings time, and so each autumn, Arizona shifts from Pacific Time to Mountain Time. Or, more accurately, the rest of the country shifts around us. I thought today was Daylight Savings time, meaning that the morning games would go from 11:00 to 2:00 now, instead of ten to one. So when I wake up at one, I expect to be able to watch the end of the game, but when I visit ESPN.com I see that the game's already over. I guess daylight savings time is next week. Thankfully, I see that the final score of the game is Pittsburgh 27, Washington 12. It looks like the defense has found some rigidity. The Steelers are now 4-3, the first time all season they have a winning record. And thanks to how weak the AFC is this year, they have a good shot at contending for a playoff spot in the conference.
In the evening, I watch highlights of the game on TV. It seems like every announcer and color commentator jokes about how ugly the Steelers' throwbacks are. But I like them. Not as an everyday thing, but as a twice-a-year special uniform, I like it. It's a fun change of pace.
Week Nine – Black and White
Today the Steelers are playing the defending Super Bowl champion Giants in New York. The Giants' success this season made me consider picking against the Steelers in the betting pool for the first time this season, but the Steelers' victories in the last two weeks have given me some faith.
If the Steelers win this game, it could be the defining moment of the season. The game's on local TV, and it's during the afternoon so I can watch the whole game without getting up early. I've been looking forward to watching it all week. But instead I decided to hang out with Sarah.
I met Sarah last semester, when we shared a class together. She's also from Albuquerque, and after we got to know each other at school we hung out a couple times in New Mexico during the summer. Just like with Kat, the two of us went to the movies, and I tried to hold her hand. I placed my hand on top of hers, expecting her to hold my hand in return, but she didn't move her hand at all. She just froze. Later that summer she explained that she had a boyfriend I didn't know about. I asked her if she wanted to see a movie this weekend, but the only day she's free is Sunday. So for the second time in four weeks, I'm giving up watching the Steelers game to take a failed romantic conquest back to the movies.
I pick Sarah up at her apartment complex at 1:30. She has a short, almost boyish haircut and a smile that makes it seem like she has too many teeth. The last time I saw Sarah was Wednesday in front of the school. It was Halloween, and she was passing out popcorn as part of her work study job. Her boss asked her to wear a costume of some kind, and so she wore a fake mustache. When I asked her what she was dressed up as, she told me that her mustache in conjunction with the black and white striped shirt she was wearing made her a convict. I have a black and white striped shirt myself that my mom sent me on my birthday. I like the shirt, I think it makes me look handsome, and I'm wearing the shirt now as I pick up Sarah and we drive to the movie theater.
We see Wreck-It Ralph. It's a kids' movie, stupid at times, but it's fun and cute, and leaves both of us with a smile on our faces as we leave the theater. As we drive back towards home, Sarah talks about spending time with Kaleb, the boyfriend she told me about after I tried to hold her hand. I had been hoping to ask her about Kaleb, to see how their relationship was going, and whether or not I might have an opportunity to ask her out myself if they were no longer together. I never asked her before because I thought she would see through my comment and know that I was trying to become involved with her, but now I finally have an opening.
"So how are things going with you and Kaleb?" I ask in the most casual tone I can muster.
Sarah sighs. "It's complicated," she says. She doesn't offer any more information and I don't want to press my luck.
When we get back to Prescott proper we go to a coffee house and get chai teas. We drink them as we walk outside, following the leaf-strewn path next to the creek, the late afternoon sun beginning to set. At one point we talk about Sarah's haircut. When we were at the theater and she showed her student ID to get a discount, I saw that she used to have longer hair and I was struck by how pretty she looked. But Sarah says that she likes her short hair, that she enjoys being androgynous. She reminds me of the last time we hung out, when the man behind the counter said, "have a good afternoon, fellas" as we left the Dairy Queen. I ask her why she likes her androgyny.
"I don't know," she says, "I don't like the way gender roles are defined. I don't like things being black and white, I want there to be shades of gray."
We finish our drinks and walk back to the car, and I drop her off at her apartment. As I drive home, my thoughts return to the Steelers game. I look at my watch. I should make it home in time to watch the final quarter.
As soon as I set foot in my room I turn on CBS. New York is wearing their royal blue and red uniforms, and Pittsburgh is of course in black and yellow. With about fourteen minutes left in the game, the Giants are winning 20-17. I gather that the Steelers just had an opportunity to tie the game with a field goal, but instead ran a fake field goal that failed miserably, and now the Giants had the ball.
But thankfully, blessedly, joyously, I watch as the Steelers get the ball back, score a touchdown to take the lead, and hold that lead until time expires. The Steelers win 24-20 and are now 5-3. I trot around my room triumphantly. For the first time all season, the Steelers have won a game against a real quality opponent, and for the first time I have real reason to believe that something good might happen this year.
Sunday's my laundry day, and I need quarters. I hop in my car and drive towards the mall where I know they have a change machine. It's dark now. As I drive I sigh contentedly and think about how what very easily could have been a loss became a win. That's the great thing about sports; it's just wins and losses. No in between, no middle ground. It's black and white. And today is black.
Week Ten – Injury
It's Monday, and the Steelers are playing the Chiefs. It's our only Monday Night Football game of the year. The Chiefs might be the worst team in the league, and the Steelers' three game win streak has given me a renewed sense of optimism.
But the Chiefs take a 10-0 lead early in the game, and the Steelers look sloppy in the pouring Pittsburgh rain. The Steelers manage to tie the game before halftime, but I'm now very apprehensive about a game I had taken for granted this afternoon. For as long as I've watched football the Steelers have had a habit of doing this. They play opponents they should theoretically blow out, but they let them hang around through the whole game, and with two minutes left the Steelers are only up four and the other team has a chance to win the game and I'm sweating out the final possession. I have a sinking feeling in my stomach that makes me worry that the Steelers are in for a letdown. I have the same feeling now I did at the end of the Raiders and Titans games.
Then things truly take a turn for the worse. Early in the third quarter, Steelers quarterback Ben Roethlisberger is injured and leaves the game. He doesn't return. Backup Byron Leftwich comes in. The Steelers manage to score a field goal in the third quarter, and the Chiefs offense is completely ineffectual through the fourth quarter. It looks like we'll escape with a win, but the Chiefs drive down the field and score a field goal on the final play of regulation to send the game to overtime. The Chiefs win the toss and take the ball first, and I'm ready to give up on the game and the season, but Matt Cassel throws an interception and Lawrence Timmons returns it to the Chiefs' five yard line. The next play the Steelers kick a field goal and win the game.
When the game ends, I turn the TV off, feeling hollow. The Steelers' performance was very shaky, and more importantly, it looks like Ben Roethlisberger might be injured for a while. The most important game of the season thus far is next week against the Ravens, and the Steelers just lost the one player they couldn't afford to lose. The season may hinge on how quickly he returns. We're 6-3, but I'm not happy. I'm only worried.
Week Eleven – Ravens Week
Tonight, on Sunday Night Football, the Steelers are playing their first of two games against the Baltimore Ravens. Over the last decade, the Ravens have become the Steelers' greatest rivals. These two teams are consistently fighting each other to win the AFC North and make the playoffs, and because of that, every game against the Ravens takes on a greater significance. A game against the Ravens could decide whether the Steelers win the division or settle for a wild card spot, or miss the playoffs entirely. For me, this fills the week leading up to the game with tension and cautious optimism. The people around me at my school don't know what's going on, but I do. No, my peers, this isn't just another seven days in November. This is Ravens Week.
At 6:30 I settle in to watch the game. ESPN says that Ben Roethlisberger will be injured for at least the next two weeks, which means Byron Leftwich is starting the game. It's a shame the injury had to come now, before the most important game of the season. The Steelers are wearing their bumblebee throwback uniforms again.
Within the first minute of the game, Byron Leftwich scores on a 31-yard touchdown run, and my shield of pessimism weakens. But then the Ravens score a touchdown on a punt return, which is sandwiched between two field goals. The Steelers can only move the ball well enough to score one more field goal, and lose 13-10. Byron Leftwich just wasn't ready for a game like this.
During football games I get especially invested in, I pace around my room in between plays for the entire game. This happens most often during Ravens games. When the final seconds tick off the clock I turn off the TV and sit down, and only then do I notice how sore my feet are. The Steelers are now 6-4, and the chances of catching the Ravens and winning the division are now very slim. They'll probably have to hope for a wild card at this point. I'm crushed by the loss, but to be honest, after three hours of anxiousness and dread, part of me is happy just to be done with it, happy to be able to sit and breathe again.
Week Twelve – Carpool
Today the Steelers are playing the Browns in Cleveland. Byron Leftwich was injured in the Ravens game, so today the Steelers are starting Charlie Batch, their third-string quarterback. I'm a little nervous about a quarterback who hasn't taken a snap all season playing, but it's against the Browns, who are on the bottom rung of the NFL, so I expect a victory.
Last Thursday was Thanksgiving. For my five-day Thanksgiving weekend I drove to Albuquerque with Kat, who's from Santa Fe, Sarah, and Sarah's ex-boyfriend Sergio. Today we're driving back, as we all need to be back in class on Monday. I pick the three of them up by noon and we spend the next seven hours driving back to Prescott. I've driven the same stretch of I-40 from Albuquerque to Prescott so many times now that it's gotten boring, and it's nice to have some company to keep things interesting. Although they don't keep me too much company. All three of them sleep all the way from Albuquerque to Gallup.
We get back to Prescott around seven, the sun having set over an hour ago. I drop Kat off at her house and Sarah and Sergio off at theirs, telling the three of them that I enjoyed having them along, and that they're welcome to come with me to Albuquerque for winter break next month. I drive back to my house and carry my backpacks inside. My first thought is to find out the result of the Steelers game. I pull my laptop out of my bag and log onto ESPN.com. I scan the row of final scores on the top of the screen, and gasp when my eyes finally land on the Steelers' score. The Browns won 20-14. I read more. Apparently the Steelers turned the ball over eight times. The Steelers lost to one of the worst teams in the league, and are now 6-5. I sigh. The Steelers season seems to be heading in the wrong direction again, and I have no idea when Ben Roethlisberger will be healthy enough to play again. And most importantly, next week is our rematch with the Ravens.
Week Thirteen – Ravens Week, Part II
I wake up on Sunday at 1:30 in the afternoon. At two, my local CBS station is showing the Steelers-Ravens game. After Charlie Batch performed so poorly last week, and the Steelers failed to beat the Browns, I'm very pessimistic about this game, bordering on hopeless. If I were to be honest with myself, I would say that I think the Ravens will win, and I consider picking them in the betting pool this week, wagering against the Steelers for the first time. But I don't. I bet on what I hope will happen, not what I think will happen. Besides, I know the Steelers have a shot. Games between Pittsburgh and Baltimore are always so close, anything can happen. It's a coin flip. It's a slugfest. It's Ravens Week.
I watch the first half grimly, as the Ravens take a ten point lead and Charlie Batch plays sloppily. Near the end of the half, the Steelers drive down the field and are in position to score a touchdown, but Charlie Batch overthrows a wide open Mike Wallace in the back of the endzone by a mile. The Steelers settle for a field goal, and go into halftime down 13-6. My pessimism begins to overtake me.
But in the second half, Charlie Batch begins making plays. He leads the Steelers down the field on their opening drive and they score a touchdown to tie the game. The Ravens score another touchdown and retake the lead, 20-13, but in the fourth quarter Charlie Batch throws a game-tying touchdown pass, and when the Steelers defense forces a punt, he drives the offense down for a game-winning field goal as time expires. When the ball goes through the uprights I leap around my room, clapping and pumping my fists wildly. The Steelers are now 7-5, and while the Ravens are still two games ahead of us with four games to go and the division is probably out of reach, I like the Steelers' chances to make the playoffs. And if we see the Ravens in the playoffs and play them a third time, I like our chances to win. As I look at the dejected Baltimore crowd on my TV, I say the only thing that comes to mind: "I love Charlie Batch."
Week Fourteen – Wallflower
On Friday night I go to a choir performance at school that a friend of mine is taking part in. I walk into the performance space at seven at night, and I see that all the seats have been taken. I find a spot against the wall to stand next to. The show starts. It's shorter than I expect, only about five songs. They end on "Don't Stop Believin'."
When the performance has concluded, everyone begins congregating in the back of the room, where a refreshment table has been set up. I look over the crowd of people and pick out just a few faces familiar to me, even though I go to a very small school and often see the same people. I consider making my way across the room to say hello to those I do know, but the throng of people in the back half of the room is too crowded and congested. Instead, I stand still, my back anchored to the wall. Being here makes me realize just how few friends I've made in my time at Prescott College. It's never been natural for me to get out of the house and seek social interaction. This leads to me filling my time with different forms of entertainment, which I obsess over in varying degrees. And of course, my biggest obsession is sports. There are times where I feel I have to remind myself that I only have one chance to go to college, but sports will always be there. When I'm eighty and alone and on my deathbed, sports will still be there.
On Sunday morning the Steelers are playing the San Diego Chargers, who have lost seven of their last eight games. I wake up at one, and expect to find the Steelers leading the game, but instead log onto ESPN.com to find that the Chargers are winning 13-3. I turn on CBS just in time to see the Chargers score another touchdown and go up 20-3. The Steelers get the ball back deep in their own territory, and then, horrifyingly, Ben Roethlisberger laterals the ball to a wide receiver, but the ball bounces off a tight end's back and rolls into the endzone. The Chargers recover, and take a 27-3 lead. I turn off the TV, frustrated, and take a shower.
After my shower I watch the rest of the game off and on. The hole the Steelers dug themselves into is too great, and they lose 34-24. They're 7-6 now, with just three games left to secure a playoff spot. When the Steelers' game ends I watch the end of the Bengals-Cowboys game. The Bengals lead 19-10, but luckily the Cowboys score the last ten points and win the game on a last second field goal. The Bengals fall to 7-6, and remain tied with the Steelers for the last playoff spot in the AFC. I'm grateful for the Cowboys' victory, but I hope it doesn't give them too much confidence. The Steelers play the Cowboys next Sunday.
Week Fifteen – Father's Day
The Steelers and Cowboys, because they play in different conferences, only play each other once every four years, alternating between Pittsburgh and Dallas. The Cowboys were my dad's favorite team. In 2004, the Steelers were playing the Cowboys in Dallas the weekend following my thirteenth birthday, and as my gift he got us tickets to the game. We spent a long weekend in Dallas at an Embassy Suites hotel. The building was ten stories tall with a big fountain and garden in the atrium. The Steelers fans in town for the game hung their black and gold jerseys in their windows, and the Cowboys fans hung their Cowboys jerseys. On Sunday morning we went to Texas Stadium. For the first time in my life, and thus far the only time, I got to see the Steelers play in person. The Cowboys took a 20-10 lead, but the Steelers scored two touchdowns to end the game and win 24-20. The stranger in the Steelers jersey sitting next to me hugged me when they punched in the winning score. My dad was of course disappointed to see the Cowboys lose, but he said he was happy that I got to see the Steelers win for my birthday.
The next time the two teams played each other was in Pittsburgh in 2008. My dad and I watched the game on TV in our living room in Albuquerque. The Cowboys carried a 13-3 lead into the fourth quarter, but the Steelers tied the game with less than two minutes to go, and then returned an interception for a touchdown to win 20-13. My dad sighed, his team bested again, and said to me, "See you in Dallas in 2012."
My dad died of cancer in 2010. His health deteriorated quickly during a Cowboys tailspin in which they started the season 1-7. That same season, the Steelers would make it to the Super Bowl, where they would lose to the Green Bay Packers. It was the first time in my conscious football-watching life that I saw the Steelers lose a Super Bowl.
Today the Steelers are playing the Cowboys in Dallas. I expect to be able to watch this marquee matchup on my local CBS affiliate, but it's pre-empted by the Cardinals game, so I settle for watching a stream online that sometimes freezes. The Cowboys offense picks apart the Steelers defense, and they take an early 10-0 lead. But the Steelers offense manages to keep up with the Cowboys, and in the second half they take a 24-17 lead and prepare to receive a punt. Antonio Brown returns the punt thirty yards, and is then stripped of the ball. The Cowboys recover and score a game-tying touchdown. The game goes to overtime, and when the Steelers win the coin toss and receive the ball, I allow myself to believe they might win. But on the second play of overtime, Ben Roethlisberger throws an interception, which is returned to the one yard line. The Cowboys kick a field goal and win 27-24.
I close the stream and try to shake the post-loss depression that always befalls me. The Steelers are now 7-7. It's the first time they've been .500 since week seven. Their once seemingly firm grasp on the final wild card spot is now hanging by a thread. I think about all the scenarios the end of the season could hold, and I think about all the opportunities the Steelers had to win the game, yet didn't. And I think about my dad, and how happy he would have been that his team got the better of mine this time.
Week Sixteen – Sports Book
My mom and I were invited to spend a weekend in Las Vegas by Leish, an old family friend of ours. Leish owned a hot air balloon years ago, and she hired my dad to join her balloon crew, and she's been our friend ever since. She loves sports, perhaps even more than me, and she planned to go to Nevada in December to see the Las Vegas Bowl, a college football postseason game, which this season paired Boise State and Washington. She invites my mom and I to come with her and her mother, and on Thursday we fly to Vegas.
I've been to Vegas three times previously, but this is the first time I've visited the city since I turned twenty-one. I spend my nights drinking free cocktails and playing Monopoly slot machines and electronic craps machines that bounced big red foam dice into the air in a glass cylinder. It made me feel like an adult. Twenty-one is going to be different.
On Saturday, around noon, Leish and her mother and I go to Sam Boyd Stadium to see the Las Vegas Bowl. My mom, not interested in college football or sitting outside in the cold for three hours, stays behind. It's the first time I've ever been to a bowl game. We sit in the front row behind the south end zone. To the left of me is a sea of purple rooting for Washington. To the right, a sheet of blue and orange polka dots supporting Boise State. Leish and her mother and I root for Boise State, as they play in the Mountain West Conference with our New Mexico Lobos. In fact, this morning we stopped by the sports book at the Flamingo, the hotel we're staying at, and all bet on Boise State to cover by winning by 6 points or more.
When a field goal is kicked through the goal posts in front of the south end zone, the people in our section can touch the ball through the net, or catch the ball if it clears the net. When the first field goal goes through and the ball strains against the net, I get a fingertip on it and knock it back towards the field of play. Boise State jumps out to an 18-3 lead, but Washington narrows it to 18-17 by halftime. I enjoy seeing one side of the stadium cheer in unison when something benefits their team, and seeing the other side do the same when it's their turn. With minutes left in the game, Washington kicks a field goal and takes a 26-25 lead, their first lead of the game, but Boise State responds with a late field goal that puts them ahead 28-26, which is the score when time expires. Boise State wins but doesn't cover.
I wake up at noon on Sunday in my Flamingo room, alone. We're flying home tomorrow, on Christmas Eve. As I step out of the shower, I turn on CBS, where I find the Steelers-Bengals game, live from Pittsburgh. I'm in Las Vegas the day of the Steelers game, just like in Week 1.
This game is the Steelers' season. If they win, all they need is a win against the Browns next week to make the playoffs. If they lose, the Bengals take the last playoff spot in the AFC, and the Steelers are eliminated. When the commercial break ends, I find that the Bengals are winning 10-7, but the Steelers soon kick a field goal to tie the game. I told my mom I would meet her and Leish at the sports book in Caesar's Palace, so I turn the TV off at the beginning of the fourth quarter and leave the Flamingo.
I walk across the strip towards Caesar's Palace. The December Nevada sun is present but ineffective. All I can think about is the game, and the overbearing knowledge that the fate of the Steelers' entire season, the thing I've wrapped up all of my emotions in during the past four months, rests on this game. I want to know what's happening in the game as I walk, but luckily, it's easy to keep track of sports in Las Vegas. There are televisions showing whatever sporting events are on at all the bars and shops and restaurants, even the ones outside. I see that the game is still tied at ten as I reach Caesar's Palace.
My eyes adjust to the calculated dimness of the casino. I walk in circles, weaving through throngs of tourists, trying to find the sports book in the maze of Caesar's Palace. Finally, I see the expanse of TVs at the far end of an enclave. The seats in the sports book proper seem to be full, so I find my mom and Leish and her mother sitting at video poker machines just outside the perimeter. The sports book is comprised of several huge TV screens and over a dozen smaller ones attached to the walls in the corner of the room. On the floor beneath the TVs sit rows of leather chairs. In the center of it all is the counter where you place your bets. Behind the counter is a sprawling LED screen that shows the matchups and the lines and the point spreads in alternating rows of green and orange. I made two bets last night at the sports book in the Flamingo, one a three-team parlay on the Saints, Rams and 49ers that will turn my ten dollars into seventy if all three teams cover, and one on the Steelers to win by four or more. I bet on the Steelers separately because it somehow seemed wrong to include them in a parlay. They had to stand on their own.
My mom and I get up and walk behind the last row of chairs, closer to one of the two big screens, which shows the Steelers game. Leish, a Cowboys fan, stays behind, preoccupied with the Cowboys-Saints game on the other big screen. The Steelers and Bengals trade drives, but the game remains tied at ten. Sitting to the left of me is a group of men wearing Steelers' jerseys who cheer whenever a play benefits our team. They could be Pittsburgh natives spending their winter vacation in Las Vegas, or they could be from anywhere else, some of the many Steelers fans who pockmark every corner of the country, like me. To the right of me is a solitary man cheering for the Bengals.
The game remains tied, and the Bengals punt the ball to the Steelers with 44 seconds remaining. I'm optimistic that Ben Roethlisberger will lead the offense down the field for a game winning field goal, but I worry that regulation will end with the game still tied and I'll have to remain paralyzed with stress and tension through overtime. Even though the Steelers have lost four of their last five games, I haven't seriously considered the prospect of them losing this game and missing the playoffs. The Steelers usually find a way to win, whereas the Bengals have historically found a way to lose. I think most sports fans feel that way deep down, that their team will find a way to win.
Then, with fourteen seconds left, Ben Roethlisberger throws an interception. Six seconds later, the Bengals kick a field goal and win 13-10. The Steelers' season is over.
My mom and I wander back over to the video poker machines, where Leish and her mom still sit. The Saints were once up 31-17, but the Cowboys scored two touchdowns in the last four minutes to send the game to overtime. The Cowboys' playoff chances could hinge on this game, and so Leish is especially wrapped up in it. Leish is a much more brash sports fan than I am, quick to curse and criticize. "Garrett can't manage the clock!" Leish said emphatically, in reference to the Cowboys' head coach.
There are plenty of people at the sports book who curse, and plenty of people who cheer. Not just for the Cowboys, but for every team. But it's not the teams they're cheering for, it's outcomes. It's point spreads. It's over-unders. All the sports bets available in Vegas lead to people caring about every miniscule sporting event. And yet, they don't really care. It's about money for them; for me it's passion, and obsession, and vicarious living. It's art to me. The people at the sports book may be just as invested in sports as me, but they don't care. They don't care that the Steelers season just ended. They don't care that my world is crashing down.
The Cowboys receive the ball to begin overtime, but they have to punt. The Saints drive down to the one yard line and kick a field goal to win 34-31. Leish and her mom get up from the video poker machines, disgusted, and we begin walking towards the shopping center in Caesar's Palace to eat lunch. As we walk, I place my hand on Leish's shoulder.
"You and I are in the same boat," I say.
I pull my walled out of my pocket and find my two betting tickets. The Cowboys' loss may have upset Leish, but it benefitted me. The Saints' win, along with the Rams' win earlier, kept my parlay alive. Now all I need is for the 49ers to beat the Seahawks in tonight's Sunday Night game to win seventy dollars. My Steelers bet, however, is now dead. I could throw the ticket away as it is, but first I tear it in half. It seems like I have to do it. That's what you see beleaguered men in battered fedoras and sports jackets do with their losing tickets at the racetrack in TV shows and cartoons. I tear the ticket in half and throw it away.
That night, the four of us go to an upscale steak house called Cut. Leish and her mom would just as soon eat at Red Lobster or Jack in the Box, but my mom encouraged all of us engage in some fine dining. My mom would go to Las Vegas most years with my dad when he was alive. They were both foodies, and eating at fine restaurants was their favorite thing about Las Vegas. I think my mom was eager for the opportunity to recapture some of those memories. I wear my best teal dress shirt and the four of us eat our steak in the dim restaurant. I stare at the bottom of my glass as I drink. I'm still trying to process the death of the Steelers' season, but I'm also trying to remember what's happened here in Vegas, trying to ensure that these memories will stay with me when winter break is over and I'm back in Prescott. Something to look back on fondly as I stagger through the semester with no friends and no girlfriend and no football.
At the end of our meal, we get back in our charcoal gray rental car and turn on the sports radio channel. The Seahawks beat the 49ers 42-13. Ten more dollars, down the drain.
Week Seventeen – Five Hundred
I wake up at one in the afternoon on Sunday in my high school bed in Albuquerque. Today is the final day of the 2012 NFL season. Through my door I can hear my mom watching her favorite team, the Colts, in the living room. Despite only winning two games last year, the Colts have made the playoffs. I reach over to my dresser and pull my laptop onto the bed with me. I log onto ESPN.com to see the score of the Steelers' game against the Browns in Pittsburgh. It's early in the fourth quarter, and the Steelers lead 17-10.
It's hard for me to care about the game, now that the Steelers are eliminated from playoff contention. The only thing for the Steelers to gain by winning today is an 8-8 record. If they can end this season on a high note, they'll be .500. Not a winning season, but not a losing one either.
I figure I should get up and shower, but I want to see how the Steelers game ends first. So I lie in bed for close to an hour, watching the clock dwindle down on the ESPN homepage. The Browns drive into Steelers' territory a couple times, but can't score. Late in the game, the Steelers score another touchdown to take a 24-10 lead. And that's the final score. The Steelers win and finish the year 8-8. .500. I get out of bed and take a shower.
And that's the way the 2012 Pittsburgh Steelers season ended. With one last bright spot in a season of disappointment. One more rise on the roller coaster. And now comes eight months of absence, eight months of longing for the next season, for the opportunity to ride that roller coaster again.
Hunter S. Thompson titled his suicide note "Football Season is Over." I completely understand. Those of us who are fanatical about sports, we live and die for our teams. That's what I'm like. Sports is deeply personal to me, at times feeling too precious to even talk about. That magnifies the importance of every game, and the importance of the whole season is multiplied exponentially.
And if your team wins the Super Bowl, that importance you place on the season pays off. You get to spend the entire off-season bathed in the glow of ultimate fulfillment. All the emotions you poured into the season turn positive, and you carry with you the joy of knowing that everything in this one area of your life has gone as well as it possibly can.
But there are thirty-two teams in the NFL, and only one can win the Super Bowl. That means that there are thirty-one fanbases who have to see their team eliminated, from the basement dwellers eliminated in November to those knocked out in the Wild Card round, the Divisional Playoffs, the Championship Games, and finally the loser of the Super Bowl. To me, that elimination means a sudden shift in the way I view the world, a pall that hangs over me in the weeks and months that follow. And for those like me, those who live and die for their teams, it means the same. When our team is eliminated, we all die. But those who aren't sports fans, they don't know. They don't know about the thirty-one genocides that take place every winter.
And when the odds of achieving that nirvana are only one in thirty-two, it can almost seem foolish to put one's self through all those eliminations. Sports is the greatest passion in my life, and yet there have been times when I've asked myself if the good sports brings into my life outweighs the bad. Perhaps the reason I continue to watch sports is for the same reason broke men gamble and barflies drink, because you've stuck with this obsession for too long and now there's nowhere else to go, and this is all you have.
But I know it's nothing that grim. I've been fortunate enough to see two Steelers Super Bowl victories in my life thus far, and I wouldn't trade those moments for anything. If I were to give up sports, I would lose the opportunity to have more moments like that, more years where my team is the one out of thirty-two. And even the losing seasons like this one have value. If I gave up sports, I would have missed out on the optimism I felt after our victory against the Bengals in week seven, or the joy and hope I felt after the Steelers beat the Giants in New York, or the thrill of watching Charlie Batch beat the Ravens. So when the new football season comes in September, I'm going to do the only thing I can do, the only thing I want to do: buy the ticket and take the ride once more.
By Hiatt Werling
Week One – Double Negative
On the first Sunday of the 2012 NFL season, I'm in Nevada. My Land Art class and I are on a field trip. The class consists only of Kerry, the teacher, and five students, including me. We had just finished winding our way through Utah, and now we're in the Nevada desert, about sixty miles north of Las Vegas. Our white Prescott College van is driving towards a land art piece called Double Negative; two huge trenches dug into the earth on either side of a canyon.
The Pittsburgh Steelers are set to play their first game of the season tonight in Denver against the Broncos and their new quarterback Peyton Manning. My class had discussed whether or not we should camp out tonight or stay at a hotel in Vegas. I hope we'll stay at a hotel so I can watch the end of the game, assuming we make it in time. Throughout the day my thoughts keep drifting back to the game. I'm giddy with the excitement of a new season, filled with the hope that always refreshes itself at the start of each autumn.
To get to the artwork we pull off the Interstate and drive down a dirt road, the road barely distinguishable from the rest of the desert. The road becomes less and less developed and our van, which doesn't have four-wheel drive, begins to sway, until finally we get stuck in the sand, unable to go forward or reverse.
We all pile out of the van. It's over a hundred degrees. We spend the next two hours trying to get the van free. We deflate the tires. We take all the weight out of the van. We dig the tires out. We build runways out of sticks and rocks to help the tires gain traction. Our teacher begins to reverse with all five of us students pushing the front of the van, inch by inch, until it once again gets stuck. We set the whole thing up again. No one's really worried, but as the sun continues to char us, I think we all have the same tiny inkling of a thought in the back of our minds: we could die out here.
Finally we give up and call a tow truck. Kerry and a student walk back towards the Interstate to flag it down. The rest of us sit in the shade of the van. The sun is finally beginning to set.
It turns out that the tow truck can't help us; it doesn't have four-wheel drive either. But the driver gives us the number of someone with a truck that does. We're flushed with relief when we finally see the huge F-150 barreling down the road. The name of the man in the truck is Dennis. He hooks the van to the truck and pulls it onto solid ground. Three people ride back to the interstate in the cab of the truck while me and two other guys ride in the bed. The two of them ride with their shirts off, which they had abandoned when the heat became too much. We're all relieved to finally be on our way.
With all of us back in the van, the teacher begins driving down the right lane of the Interstate at about 45 miles an hour, to go easy on the deflated tires. Finally, we reach a gas station and pull off. It's completely dark now, and the night air is humid and enveloping. I stand off to the side, drinking a Mr. Pibb as I watch Kerry put air back into the tires. All the while, I keep thinking to myself that this whole little ordeal will all be worth it if the Steelers win. That'll make it all okay.
We decide to spend the night in Vegas, as we all feel like we deserve it after our adventure. We get to the Plaza Hotel around 10:00 at night. We walk in through the casino, and we hurry past the sports book. I try to catch a glimpse of the Steelers-Broncos score amongst the alternating rows of orange and green numbers, but can't find it. We finally check into our rooms. As one of my classmates jumps in the shower, all of us preparing to go down to Fremont Street and have some fun, I hurriedly turn on ESPN. My eyes are glued to the crawl on the bottom of the screen until the score finally comes up: Broncos 31, Steelers 19.
Soon it's my turn to shower. As the hot water washes away the dirt I accumulated in the desert, I mourn softly. 0-1, I keep thinking. 0-1. Any football fan hates to get the season started on the wrong foot. But as I prepare to go down into the system-shocking lights of Vegas, I force myself to make peace with the loss. There's still a lot of football to be played, I think. It's a long season. We'll be fine.
Week Two – Betting Pool
An old friend of my family in Albuquerque runs a betting pool every NFL season, and this year she invited me to join. You pay ten dollars per week, and you pick a winner for each of that week's games. If you pick the most winners, you win everyone's ten dollars for that week, about $400 in total. It makes each game more exciting, the knowledge that maybe this game could be what swings the possession of a small fortune in your favor.
On Sunday afternoon the Steelers are playing the New York Jets in Pittsburgh. Luckily, my local CBS affiliate is showing the game, so I can at least watch it on my 11'' TV instead of on an inconsistent stream on my laptop. The Steelers take the lead against the Jets and, unlike their game against the Broncos, don't relinquish it, winning 27-10. After the game, I turn off the TV and relax alone in my room, basking in the glow of the victory. This is the feeling I was missing through the spring and summer, the feeling I didn't realize how much I was longing for until I had it again; the knowledge that my team won. That pure, direct joy that will color the next seven days. Each game is a coin flip, either your team wins or loses. Good or bad, no middle ground. And when it's good, you have this high that stays with you, the comfort of knowing that everything, for this week, is as good as it can possibly be. Until next Sunday, when it's time to flip the coin again.
I do well in the pool this week. I have a chance to win the pot on the last game of the week, the Monday Night game between the Broncos and Falcons. I find myself rooting for Denver to win and for the combined score to be 57 or more. I come close, but I don't win. Regardless, I can see why people like gambling.
Week Three – Shattered Bowl
During week three of the season, I'm on a week long vacation from school. My two roommates have both gone away for the break, so I have the house to myself. That Sunday, the Steelers are playing the Raiders in Oakland. The Raiders look like one of the worst teams in the league, and after the Steelers' success against the Jets, I'm taking it for granted that they'll win. I make a bowl of ramen noodles and settle in to watch the game on my laptop. At first, my confidence seems well placed, as the Steelers take a 24-14 lead. But then the Raiders score a touchdown and narrow the lead to 24-21. The Steelers score another touchdown, seemingly ending the potential crisis, but then the Raiders match the touchdown, and on their next drive score a field goal, tying the game at 31. This was supposed to be a gift, a free victory, and here I was, sweating bullets through the fourth quarter. I begin to notice a sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach, a feeling that says, "we're going to lose this game, and even if we win I'm not going to feel good about it."
The Steelers get the ball back with an opportunity to retake the lead, but are forced to punt. As the Raiders retake possession, and the likelihood of the Steelers losing becomes unavoidable, an anger starts building in me. A blind, childish anger that I can't ignore. Or, more accurately, I could very easily ignore but choose not to. For longer than I've been alive, the flagship of the Steelers franchise has been their rock steady defense. When I was growing up, I couldn't always count on the offense to come through, but I knew the defense could always come up with that big stop. For the last couple of years, many sports experts have been predicted that the Steelers defense would regress, that the players anchoring the defense had grown too old. But for the last couple seasons, the defense managed to prove them wrong. But the projections for the Steelers' 2012 season, and their performance in this game, make me think that this might be the year the defense lets us down.
As my frustration simmers, the Steelers manage to force the Raiders into a 3rd and 10. I think, "If they can just make one stop on this play, they might be able to salvage this game." And then I watch helplessly as they give up a 15-yard pass and a first down.
My anger spikes. I grab the now empty ceramic bowl that had held my ramen noodles, wheel around, and hurl it onto my cement floor. It shatters into several large shards and many, many smaller pieces, scattering over the floor, into my closet and under the doorjamb.
Sure enough, the Raiders kick the winning field goal as time expires. I can't muster up the energy to be mad anymore. Instead I just close the stream's window on my laptop and walk, trance-like, to the furnace closet, where I grab a broom. I stand above the particles that once comprised the bowl, leaning on the broom handle, tired and defeated, almost as if I would collapse if the broom weren't there, which I probably would. I begin to sweep up as reality sets in: we're 1-2.
Week Four – Bye Week
I get so wrapped up in sports that a loss can stick with me to the point where I don't even want to watch the next game, afraid that I'll get punched in the gut again. This is the feeling I have following the Steelers' loss to the Raiders, but luckily, week four is the Steelers' bye week. I have until next Sunday to recuperate.
My roommates come home today in preparation to resume school tomorrow. I don't tell them that they're returning home to a kitchen with one less bowl.
Week Five – Keystone
In week five, the Steelers are playing their Keystone state rivals, the Philadelphia Eagles, on Sunday afternoon. I wake up at 12:00 noon. I love watching football, but not enough to get up early on a Sunday. I slither out of bed and get on my laptop. I never really wake up properly until I take a shower, but on Sundays I always have to find out the scores of all the early games first. It's always fun to check in on the slate of morning games as they all head into the fourth quarter. It's like having seven or eight stories to catch up on when I wake up, and I can cherry pick the entertaining, competitive games and flip around those on the TV.
But when I log onto ESPN.com, I'm surprised to find the score of the Steelers-Eagles game among the others. I thought for sure the game was being played in the afternoon, but instead it's already almost over. It's midway through the fourth quarter, and the Steelers are up 13-7. I turn on my TV just in time to see the Eagles score a touchdown, taking a 14-13 lead.
I'm not even really awake yet, and I'm trying to grasp the idea of the Steelers starting the season 1-3. But I stand and watch as the Steelers use the last seven minutes of the game to drive down the field. They put themselves in field goal position with just seconds to go. I wait in a tense hush until I see the field goal go up, and in. I lean against the post of my bunk bed, burying my face in the top quilt, a wave of relief washing over me. We're 2-2. I get in the shower and wake up.
Week Six – The Master
It's Thursday, October 11, one day before my 21st birthday. The Steelers are playing the Titans in Nashville on Thursday Night Football. The Thursday Night games are on NFL Network, which I don't get on my basic cable package, so I would have to watch the game on my laptop. But I instead decide to skip the game and go see a movie with my friend Kat. I don't think I'll miss much by not watching the game; the Titans are one of the worst teams in the league, the Steelers shouldn't have any problem with them. "Then again," I think, "that's what I thought about the Raiders game."
I pick Kat up at her house and together we drive to the theater in Prescott Valley. We spend the car ride conversing about our classes, our social lives and other surface topics. I met Kat my first semester at Prescott College. I spent a year cultivating a crush on her, and then asked her on a date at the beginning of our sophomore year, a date at the same movie theater we were going to now. She agreed to come to the movie with me, but didn't realize I had intended it to be a date. As we sat next to each other in the theater, I reached across the armrest and held her hand, and she finally realized my intention. She held my hand in return, but something in her body language, the way she shifted and stiffened, told me that this wasn't what she wanted. Sure enough, after I dropped her off that night, we exchanged texts and she told me that she just wanted to be friends. This could have made things weird between us, but Kat never made me feel awkward about it, and so I don't feel awkward.
We drive down Highway 69, the road that brings most people visiting Prescott into the city limits, until we reach the movie theater in Prescott Valley. The building is painted in bold shades of blue, red, green and orange, formed into rays that seem to be coming out of the ground. The first time I ever drove in to Prescott, I saw this theater and thought to myself, "That's it. Those colors are Arizona."
The movie we see is called The Master. It's about an aimless drunkard who gets pulled into a cult, developing a friendship with the charismatic cult leader who has more sway over the drunkard's life than the drunkard even realizes. As Kat and I leave the theater, we both agree that the movie was good, but confusing.
I drop Kat off at her house and drive home. I remember the game and log onto ESPN.com, eager to see the results of what I expect to be a comfortable Steelers victory. But when the page loads, I see the final score: Titans 26, Steelers 23. I shoot up out of my chair and pace back and forth in shock. I slowly begin to process the defeat, and the fact that the Steelers are 2-3. I've seen the Steelers win twelve games three different seasons, and go to the Super Bowl twice, in the past four years, and they haven't had a losing season since 2003. But it looks like this season might be different.
At the beginning of September I got into the habit of taking long walks at midnight on weekends. It takes me away from the computer I spend almost all my free time on and gives me an opportunity to get some exercise, listen to music, and clear my head. Tonight it's raining slightly, and I consider staying in, but I need to push on. I walk through the drizzle, striding along Sheldon Street, past gas stations and motels until I reach Gurley and turn right, trotting down into Prescott's town square. The more I walk, the more I begin to accept the loss. I stare intently at my watch until it rolls over to midnight, Friday, October 12, my 21st birthday. I'm quite happy with my choice to come to Prescott College, but I'm still bothered by nagging realizations that my life isn't quite what I want it to be, like my minimal amount of friends, or my persistent fear of asking girls out. But as I near home, I lean against a rail and put my hand on my chest, feeling my heart through my dampened shirt. I look up at the stars and say to myself, "Twenty-one's going to be different."
Week Seven – Hold on Hope
The Steelers are playing the Bengals tonight in Cincinnati on Sunday Night Football. Last week's loss to the Titans still stings, and my expectations for this season have been considerably lowered, but I still watch the game. The Bengals drive the ball down the throat of the Steelers defense on their first drive, and in the second quarter they have a 14-3 lead. I begin to lose hope, but the Steelers wrestle control away from the Bengals through the rest of the game and win 24-17.
I'm happy to see the Steelers win, but there's a small, nagging trouble in the back of my mind. It's stressful for a fan to live and die for their team year in and year out, and to be honest, there was a tiny part of me that wanted the Steelers to have an off season this year. That way, I wouldn't have to spend four months of my year worrying over each game and the playoff implications that come with it. In the same way a win colors the following week with contentedness and joy, a loss is a pall that hangs over you. And when your team is a contender, that pall is magnified. Suddenly every loss could mean missing out on a bye week, or losing the division, or not making the playoffs at all. It can put a lot of strain on one's emotional state. That's what I've been through each of the past five, ten seasons, and the thought of checking out early and being able to relax seems a little enticing.
But I know down that that's not what I really want. Any football fan needs to have hope. If you don't have hope, if you don't want to see your team win, then there's no point in watching. The Steelers are now 3-3. .500. They have now followed each of their losses with a win. Each time I've wanted to give up on them, they've managed to draw me back in. The season's been completely up and down so far, a roller coaster. And the only thing for me to do is strap in and keep on riding.
Week Eight – Throwback
This Sunday the Steelers are playing the Redskins in Pittsburgh, and before the game it was announced that the Steelers would be wearing their new alternate uniforms for this season. They're throwback uniforms from 1934, the Steelers' second year of existence, and the jerseys are saturated in alternating black and yellow horizontal stripes, with the number encased in white boxes. When I wake up at one in the afternoon, I find I've already been texted by two different people asking me what's up with the Steelers' uniforms. I smile. I like that they see these crazy bumblebee uniforms and their first thought is to ask me about them.
Arizona doesn't observe daylight savings time, and so each autumn, Arizona shifts from Pacific Time to Mountain Time. Or, more accurately, the rest of the country shifts around us. I thought today was Daylight Savings time, meaning that the morning games would go from 11:00 to 2:00 now, instead of ten to one. So when I wake up at one, I expect to be able to watch the end of the game, but when I visit ESPN.com I see that the game's already over. I guess daylight savings time is next week. Thankfully, I see that the final score of the game is Pittsburgh 27, Washington 12. It looks like the defense has found some rigidity. The Steelers are now 4-3, the first time all season they have a winning record. And thanks to how weak the AFC is this year, they have a good shot at contending for a playoff spot in the conference.
In the evening, I watch highlights of the game on TV. It seems like every announcer and color commentator jokes about how ugly the Steelers' throwbacks are. But I like them. Not as an everyday thing, but as a twice-a-year special uniform, I like it. It's a fun change of pace.
Week Nine – Black and White
Today the Steelers are playing the defending Super Bowl champion Giants in New York. The Giants' success this season made me consider picking against the Steelers in the betting pool for the first time this season, but the Steelers' victories in the last two weeks have given me some faith.
If the Steelers win this game, it could be the defining moment of the season. The game's on local TV, and it's during the afternoon so I can watch the whole game without getting up early. I've been looking forward to watching it all week. But instead I decided to hang out with Sarah.
I met Sarah last semester, when we shared a class together. She's also from Albuquerque, and after we got to know each other at school we hung out a couple times in New Mexico during the summer. Just like with Kat, the two of us went to the movies, and I tried to hold her hand. I placed my hand on top of hers, expecting her to hold my hand in return, but she didn't move her hand at all. She just froze. Later that summer she explained that she had a boyfriend I didn't know about. I asked her if she wanted to see a movie this weekend, but the only day she's free is Sunday. So for the second time in four weeks, I'm giving up watching the Steelers game to take a failed romantic conquest back to the movies.
I pick Sarah up at her apartment complex at 1:30. She has a short, almost boyish haircut and a smile that makes it seem like she has too many teeth. The last time I saw Sarah was Wednesday in front of the school. It was Halloween, and she was passing out popcorn as part of her work study job. Her boss asked her to wear a costume of some kind, and so she wore a fake mustache. When I asked her what she was dressed up as, she told me that her mustache in conjunction with the black and white striped shirt she was wearing made her a convict. I have a black and white striped shirt myself that my mom sent me on my birthday. I like the shirt, I think it makes me look handsome, and I'm wearing the shirt now as I pick up Sarah and we drive to the movie theater.
We see Wreck-It Ralph. It's a kids' movie, stupid at times, but it's fun and cute, and leaves both of us with a smile on our faces as we leave the theater. As we drive back towards home, Sarah talks about spending time with Kaleb, the boyfriend she told me about after I tried to hold her hand. I had been hoping to ask her about Kaleb, to see how their relationship was going, and whether or not I might have an opportunity to ask her out myself if they were no longer together. I never asked her before because I thought she would see through my comment and know that I was trying to become involved with her, but now I finally have an opening.
"So how are things going with you and Kaleb?" I ask in the most casual tone I can muster.
Sarah sighs. "It's complicated," she says. She doesn't offer any more information and I don't want to press my luck.
When we get back to Prescott proper we go to a coffee house and get chai teas. We drink them as we walk outside, following the leaf-strewn path next to the creek, the late afternoon sun beginning to set. At one point we talk about Sarah's haircut. When we were at the theater and she showed her student ID to get a discount, I saw that she used to have longer hair and I was struck by how pretty she looked. But Sarah says that she likes her short hair, that she enjoys being androgynous. She reminds me of the last time we hung out, when the man behind the counter said, "have a good afternoon, fellas" as we left the Dairy Queen. I ask her why she likes her androgyny.
"I don't know," she says, "I don't like the way gender roles are defined. I don't like things being black and white, I want there to be shades of gray."
We finish our drinks and walk back to the car, and I drop her off at her apartment. As I drive home, my thoughts return to the Steelers game. I look at my watch. I should make it home in time to watch the final quarter.
As soon as I set foot in my room I turn on CBS. New York is wearing their royal blue and red uniforms, and Pittsburgh is of course in black and yellow. With about fourteen minutes left in the game, the Giants are winning 20-17. I gather that the Steelers just had an opportunity to tie the game with a field goal, but instead ran a fake field goal that failed miserably, and now the Giants had the ball.
But thankfully, blessedly, joyously, I watch as the Steelers get the ball back, score a touchdown to take the lead, and hold that lead until time expires. The Steelers win 24-20 and are now 5-3. I trot around my room triumphantly. For the first time all season, the Steelers have won a game against a real quality opponent, and for the first time I have real reason to believe that something good might happen this year.
Sunday's my laundry day, and I need quarters. I hop in my car and drive towards the mall where I know they have a change machine. It's dark now. As I drive I sigh contentedly and think about how what very easily could have been a loss became a win. That's the great thing about sports; it's just wins and losses. No in between, no middle ground. It's black and white. And today is black.
Week Ten – Injury
It's Monday, and the Steelers are playing the Chiefs. It's our only Monday Night Football game of the year. The Chiefs might be the worst team in the league, and the Steelers' three game win streak has given me a renewed sense of optimism.
But the Chiefs take a 10-0 lead early in the game, and the Steelers look sloppy in the pouring Pittsburgh rain. The Steelers manage to tie the game before halftime, but I'm now very apprehensive about a game I had taken for granted this afternoon. For as long as I've watched football the Steelers have had a habit of doing this. They play opponents they should theoretically blow out, but they let them hang around through the whole game, and with two minutes left the Steelers are only up four and the other team has a chance to win the game and I'm sweating out the final possession. I have a sinking feeling in my stomach that makes me worry that the Steelers are in for a letdown. I have the same feeling now I did at the end of the Raiders and Titans games.
Then things truly take a turn for the worse. Early in the third quarter, Steelers quarterback Ben Roethlisberger is injured and leaves the game. He doesn't return. Backup Byron Leftwich comes in. The Steelers manage to score a field goal in the third quarter, and the Chiefs offense is completely ineffectual through the fourth quarter. It looks like we'll escape with a win, but the Chiefs drive down the field and score a field goal on the final play of regulation to send the game to overtime. The Chiefs win the toss and take the ball first, and I'm ready to give up on the game and the season, but Matt Cassel throws an interception and Lawrence Timmons returns it to the Chiefs' five yard line. The next play the Steelers kick a field goal and win the game.
When the game ends, I turn the TV off, feeling hollow. The Steelers' performance was very shaky, and more importantly, it looks like Ben Roethlisberger might be injured for a while. The most important game of the season thus far is next week against the Ravens, and the Steelers just lost the one player they couldn't afford to lose. The season may hinge on how quickly he returns. We're 6-3, but I'm not happy. I'm only worried.
Week Eleven – Ravens Week
Tonight, on Sunday Night Football, the Steelers are playing their first of two games against the Baltimore Ravens. Over the last decade, the Ravens have become the Steelers' greatest rivals. These two teams are consistently fighting each other to win the AFC North and make the playoffs, and because of that, every game against the Ravens takes on a greater significance. A game against the Ravens could decide whether the Steelers win the division or settle for a wild card spot, or miss the playoffs entirely. For me, this fills the week leading up to the game with tension and cautious optimism. The people around me at my school don't know what's going on, but I do. No, my peers, this isn't just another seven days in November. This is Ravens Week.
At 6:30 I settle in to watch the game. ESPN says that Ben Roethlisberger will be injured for at least the next two weeks, which means Byron Leftwich is starting the game. It's a shame the injury had to come now, before the most important game of the season. The Steelers are wearing their bumblebee throwback uniforms again.
Within the first minute of the game, Byron Leftwich scores on a 31-yard touchdown run, and my shield of pessimism weakens. But then the Ravens score a touchdown on a punt return, which is sandwiched between two field goals. The Steelers can only move the ball well enough to score one more field goal, and lose 13-10. Byron Leftwich just wasn't ready for a game like this.
During football games I get especially invested in, I pace around my room in between plays for the entire game. This happens most often during Ravens games. When the final seconds tick off the clock I turn off the TV and sit down, and only then do I notice how sore my feet are. The Steelers are now 6-4, and the chances of catching the Ravens and winning the division are now very slim. They'll probably have to hope for a wild card at this point. I'm crushed by the loss, but to be honest, after three hours of anxiousness and dread, part of me is happy just to be done with it, happy to be able to sit and breathe again.
Week Twelve – Carpool
Today the Steelers are playing the Browns in Cleveland. Byron Leftwich was injured in the Ravens game, so today the Steelers are starting Charlie Batch, their third-string quarterback. I'm a little nervous about a quarterback who hasn't taken a snap all season playing, but it's against the Browns, who are on the bottom rung of the NFL, so I expect a victory.
Last Thursday was Thanksgiving. For my five-day Thanksgiving weekend I drove to Albuquerque with Kat, who's from Santa Fe, Sarah, and Sarah's ex-boyfriend Sergio. Today we're driving back, as we all need to be back in class on Monday. I pick the three of them up by noon and we spend the next seven hours driving back to Prescott. I've driven the same stretch of I-40 from Albuquerque to Prescott so many times now that it's gotten boring, and it's nice to have some company to keep things interesting. Although they don't keep me too much company. All three of them sleep all the way from Albuquerque to Gallup.
We get back to Prescott around seven, the sun having set over an hour ago. I drop Kat off at her house and Sarah and Sergio off at theirs, telling the three of them that I enjoyed having them along, and that they're welcome to come with me to Albuquerque for winter break next month. I drive back to my house and carry my backpacks inside. My first thought is to find out the result of the Steelers game. I pull my laptop out of my bag and log onto ESPN.com. I scan the row of final scores on the top of the screen, and gasp when my eyes finally land on the Steelers' score. The Browns won 20-14. I read more. Apparently the Steelers turned the ball over eight times. The Steelers lost to one of the worst teams in the league, and are now 6-5. I sigh. The Steelers season seems to be heading in the wrong direction again, and I have no idea when Ben Roethlisberger will be healthy enough to play again. And most importantly, next week is our rematch with the Ravens.
Week Thirteen – Ravens Week, Part II
I wake up on Sunday at 1:30 in the afternoon. At two, my local CBS station is showing the Steelers-Ravens game. After Charlie Batch performed so poorly last week, and the Steelers failed to beat the Browns, I'm very pessimistic about this game, bordering on hopeless. If I were to be honest with myself, I would say that I think the Ravens will win, and I consider picking them in the betting pool this week, wagering against the Steelers for the first time. But I don't. I bet on what I hope will happen, not what I think will happen. Besides, I know the Steelers have a shot. Games between Pittsburgh and Baltimore are always so close, anything can happen. It's a coin flip. It's a slugfest. It's Ravens Week.
I watch the first half grimly, as the Ravens take a ten point lead and Charlie Batch plays sloppily. Near the end of the half, the Steelers drive down the field and are in position to score a touchdown, but Charlie Batch overthrows a wide open Mike Wallace in the back of the endzone by a mile. The Steelers settle for a field goal, and go into halftime down 13-6. My pessimism begins to overtake me.
But in the second half, Charlie Batch begins making plays. He leads the Steelers down the field on their opening drive and they score a touchdown to tie the game. The Ravens score another touchdown and retake the lead, 20-13, but in the fourth quarter Charlie Batch throws a game-tying touchdown pass, and when the Steelers defense forces a punt, he drives the offense down for a game-winning field goal as time expires. When the ball goes through the uprights I leap around my room, clapping and pumping my fists wildly. The Steelers are now 7-5, and while the Ravens are still two games ahead of us with four games to go and the division is probably out of reach, I like the Steelers' chances to make the playoffs. And if we see the Ravens in the playoffs and play them a third time, I like our chances to win. As I look at the dejected Baltimore crowd on my TV, I say the only thing that comes to mind: "I love Charlie Batch."
Week Fourteen – Wallflower
On Friday night I go to a choir performance at school that a friend of mine is taking part in. I walk into the performance space at seven at night, and I see that all the seats have been taken. I find a spot against the wall to stand next to. The show starts. It's shorter than I expect, only about five songs. They end on "Don't Stop Believin'."
When the performance has concluded, everyone begins congregating in the back of the room, where a refreshment table has been set up. I look over the crowd of people and pick out just a few faces familiar to me, even though I go to a very small school and often see the same people. I consider making my way across the room to say hello to those I do know, but the throng of people in the back half of the room is too crowded and congested. Instead, I stand still, my back anchored to the wall. Being here makes me realize just how few friends I've made in my time at Prescott College. It's never been natural for me to get out of the house and seek social interaction. This leads to me filling my time with different forms of entertainment, which I obsess over in varying degrees. And of course, my biggest obsession is sports. There are times where I feel I have to remind myself that I only have one chance to go to college, but sports will always be there. When I'm eighty and alone and on my deathbed, sports will still be there.
On Sunday morning the Steelers are playing the San Diego Chargers, who have lost seven of their last eight games. I wake up at one, and expect to find the Steelers leading the game, but instead log onto ESPN.com to find that the Chargers are winning 13-3. I turn on CBS just in time to see the Chargers score another touchdown and go up 20-3. The Steelers get the ball back deep in their own territory, and then, horrifyingly, Ben Roethlisberger laterals the ball to a wide receiver, but the ball bounces off a tight end's back and rolls into the endzone. The Chargers recover, and take a 27-3 lead. I turn off the TV, frustrated, and take a shower.
After my shower I watch the rest of the game off and on. The hole the Steelers dug themselves into is too great, and they lose 34-24. They're 7-6 now, with just three games left to secure a playoff spot. When the Steelers' game ends I watch the end of the Bengals-Cowboys game. The Bengals lead 19-10, but luckily the Cowboys score the last ten points and win the game on a last second field goal. The Bengals fall to 7-6, and remain tied with the Steelers for the last playoff spot in the AFC. I'm grateful for the Cowboys' victory, but I hope it doesn't give them too much confidence. The Steelers play the Cowboys next Sunday.
Week Fifteen – Father's Day
The Steelers and Cowboys, because they play in different conferences, only play each other once every four years, alternating between Pittsburgh and Dallas. The Cowboys were my dad's favorite team. In 2004, the Steelers were playing the Cowboys in Dallas the weekend following my thirteenth birthday, and as my gift he got us tickets to the game. We spent a long weekend in Dallas at an Embassy Suites hotel. The building was ten stories tall with a big fountain and garden in the atrium. The Steelers fans in town for the game hung their black and gold jerseys in their windows, and the Cowboys fans hung their Cowboys jerseys. On Sunday morning we went to Texas Stadium. For the first time in my life, and thus far the only time, I got to see the Steelers play in person. The Cowboys took a 20-10 lead, but the Steelers scored two touchdowns to end the game and win 24-20. The stranger in the Steelers jersey sitting next to me hugged me when they punched in the winning score. My dad was of course disappointed to see the Cowboys lose, but he said he was happy that I got to see the Steelers win for my birthday.
The next time the two teams played each other was in Pittsburgh in 2008. My dad and I watched the game on TV in our living room in Albuquerque. The Cowboys carried a 13-3 lead into the fourth quarter, but the Steelers tied the game with less than two minutes to go, and then returned an interception for a touchdown to win 20-13. My dad sighed, his team bested again, and said to me, "See you in Dallas in 2012."
My dad died of cancer in 2010. His health deteriorated quickly during a Cowboys tailspin in which they started the season 1-7. That same season, the Steelers would make it to the Super Bowl, where they would lose to the Green Bay Packers. It was the first time in my conscious football-watching life that I saw the Steelers lose a Super Bowl.
Today the Steelers are playing the Cowboys in Dallas. I expect to be able to watch this marquee matchup on my local CBS affiliate, but it's pre-empted by the Cardinals game, so I settle for watching a stream online that sometimes freezes. The Cowboys offense picks apart the Steelers defense, and they take an early 10-0 lead. But the Steelers offense manages to keep up with the Cowboys, and in the second half they take a 24-17 lead and prepare to receive a punt. Antonio Brown returns the punt thirty yards, and is then stripped of the ball. The Cowboys recover and score a game-tying touchdown. The game goes to overtime, and when the Steelers win the coin toss and receive the ball, I allow myself to believe they might win. But on the second play of overtime, Ben Roethlisberger throws an interception, which is returned to the one yard line. The Cowboys kick a field goal and win 27-24.
I close the stream and try to shake the post-loss depression that always befalls me. The Steelers are now 7-7. It's the first time they've been .500 since week seven. Their once seemingly firm grasp on the final wild card spot is now hanging by a thread. I think about all the scenarios the end of the season could hold, and I think about all the opportunities the Steelers had to win the game, yet didn't. And I think about my dad, and how happy he would have been that his team got the better of mine this time.
Week Sixteen – Sports Book
My mom and I were invited to spend a weekend in Las Vegas by Leish, an old family friend of ours. Leish owned a hot air balloon years ago, and she hired my dad to join her balloon crew, and she's been our friend ever since. She loves sports, perhaps even more than me, and she planned to go to Nevada in December to see the Las Vegas Bowl, a college football postseason game, which this season paired Boise State and Washington. She invites my mom and I to come with her and her mother, and on Thursday we fly to Vegas.
I've been to Vegas three times previously, but this is the first time I've visited the city since I turned twenty-one. I spend my nights drinking free cocktails and playing Monopoly slot machines and electronic craps machines that bounced big red foam dice into the air in a glass cylinder. It made me feel like an adult. Twenty-one is going to be different.
On Saturday, around noon, Leish and her mother and I go to Sam Boyd Stadium to see the Las Vegas Bowl. My mom, not interested in college football or sitting outside in the cold for three hours, stays behind. It's the first time I've ever been to a bowl game. We sit in the front row behind the south end zone. To the left of me is a sea of purple rooting for Washington. To the right, a sheet of blue and orange polka dots supporting Boise State. Leish and her mother and I root for Boise State, as they play in the Mountain West Conference with our New Mexico Lobos. In fact, this morning we stopped by the sports book at the Flamingo, the hotel we're staying at, and all bet on Boise State to cover by winning by 6 points or more.
When a field goal is kicked through the goal posts in front of the south end zone, the people in our section can touch the ball through the net, or catch the ball if it clears the net. When the first field goal goes through and the ball strains against the net, I get a fingertip on it and knock it back towards the field of play. Boise State jumps out to an 18-3 lead, but Washington narrows it to 18-17 by halftime. I enjoy seeing one side of the stadium cheer in unison when something benefits their team, and seeing the other side do the same when it's their turn. With minutes left in the game, Washington kicks a field goal and takes a 26-25 lead, their first lead of the game, but Boise State responds with a late field goal that puts them ahead 28-26, which is the score when time expires. Boise State wins but doesn't cover.
I wake up at noon on Sunday in my Flamingo room, alone. We're flying home tomorrow, on Christmas Eve. As I step out of the shower, I turn on CBS, where I find the Steelers-Bengals game, live from Pittsburgh. I'm in Las Vegas the day of the Steelers game, just like in Week 1.
This game is the Steelers' season. If they win, all they need is a win against the Browns next week to make the playoffs. If they lose, the Bengals take the last playoff spot in the AFC, and the Steelers are eliminated. When the commercial break ends, I find that the Bengals are winning 10-7, but the Steelers soon kick a field goal to tie the game. I told my mom I would meet her and Leish at the sports book in Caesar's Palace, so I turn the TV off at the beginning of the fourth quarter and leave the Flamingo.
I walk across the strip towards Caesar's Palace. The December Nevada sun is present but ineffective. All I can think about is the game, and the overbearing knowledge that the fate of the Steelers' entire season, the thing I've wrapped up all of my emotions in during the past four months, rests on this game. I want to know what's happening in the game as I walk, but luckily, it's easy to keep track of sports in Las Vegas. There are televisions showing whatever sporting events are on at all the bars and shops and restaurants, even the ones outside. I see that the game is still tied at ten as I reach Caesar's Palace.
My eyes adjust to the calculated dimness of the casino. I walk in circles, weaving through throngs of tourists, trying to find the sports book in the maze of Caesar's Palace. Finally, I see the expanse of TVs at the far end of an enclave. The seats in the sports book proper seem to be full, so I find my mom and Leish and her mother sitting at video poker machines just outside the perimeter. The sports book is comprised of several huge TV screens and over a dozen smaller ones attached to the walls in the corner of the room. On the floor beneath the TVs sit rows of leather chairs. In the center of it all is the counter where you place your bets. Behind the counter is a sprawling LED screen that shows the matchups and the lines and the point spreads in alternating rows of green and orange. I made two bets last night at the sports book in the Flamingo, one a three-team parlay on the Saints, Rams and 49ers that will turn my ten dollars into seventy if all three teams cover, and one on the Steelers to win by four or more. I bet on the Steelers separately because it somehow seemed wrong to include them in a parlay. They had to stand on their own.
My mom and I get up and walk behind the last row of chairs, closer to one of the two big screens, which shows the Steelers game. Leish, a Cowboys fan, stays behind, preoccupied with the Cowboys-Saints game on the other big screen. The Steelers and Bengals trade drives, but the game remains tied at ten. Sitting to the left of me is a group of men wearing Steelers' jerseys who cheer whenever a play benefits our team. They could be Pittsburgh natives spending their winter vacation in Las Vegas, or they could be from anywhere else, some of the many Steelers fans who pockmark every corner of the country, like me. To the right of me is a solitary man cheering for the Bengals.
The game remains tied, and the Bengals punt the ball to the Steelers with 44 seconds remaining. I'm optimistic that Ben Roethlisberger will lead the offense down the field for a game winning field goal, but I worry that regulation will end with the game still tied and I'll have to remain paralyzed with stress and tension through overtime. Even though the Steelers have lost four of their last five games, I haven't seriously considered the prospect of them losing this game and missing the playoffs. The Steelers usually find a way to win, whereas the Bengals have historically found a way to lose. I think most sports fans feel that way deep down, that their team will find a way to win.
Then, with fourteen seconds left, Ben Roethlisberger throws an interception. Six seconds later, the Bengals kick a field goal and win 13-10. The Steelers' season is over.
My mom and I wander back over to the video poker machines, where Leish and her mom still sit. The Saints were once up 31-17, but the Cowboys scored two touchdowns in the last four minutes to send the game to overtime. The Cowboys' playoff chances could hinge on this game, and so Leish is especially wrapped up in it. Leish is a much more brash sports fan than I am, quick to curse and criticize. "Garrett can't manage the clock!" Leish said emphatically, in reference to the Cowboys' head coach.
There are plenty of people at the sports book who curse, and plenty of people who cheer. Not just for the Cowboys, but for every team. But it's not the teams they're cheering for, it's outcomes. It's point spreads. It's over-unders. All the sports bets available in Vegas lead to people caring about every miniscule sporting event. And yet, they don't really care. It's about money for them; for me it's passion, and obsession, and vicarious living. It's art to me. The people at the sports book may be just as invested in sports as me, but they don't care. They don't care that the Steelers season just ended. They don't care that my world is crashing down.
The Cowboys receive the ball to begin overtime, but they have to punt. The Saints drive down to the one yard line and kick a field goal to win 34-31. Leish and her mom get up from the video poker machines, disgusted, and we begin walking towards the shopping center in Caesar's Palace to eat lunch. As we walk, I place my hand on Leish's shoulder.
"You and I are in the same boat," I say.
I pull my walled out of my pocket and find my two betting tickets. The Cowboys' loss may have upset Leish, but it benefitted me. The Saints' win, along with the Rams' win earlier, kept my parlay alive. Now all I need is for the 49ers to beat the Seahawks in tonight's Sunday Night game to win seventy dollars. My Steelers bet, however, is now dead. I could throw the ticket away as it is, but first I tear it in half. It seems like I have to do it. That's what you see beleaguered men in battered fedoras and sports jackets do with their losing tickets at the racetrack in TV shows and cartoons. I tear the ticket in half and throw it away.
That night, the four of us go to an upscale steak house called Cut. Leish and her mom would just as soon eat at Red Lobster or Jack in the Box, but my mom encouraged all of us engage in some fine dining. My mom would go to Las Vegas most years with my dad when he was alive. They were both foodies, and eating at fine restaurants was their favorite thing about Las Vegas. I think my mom was eager for the opportunity to recapture some of those memories. I wear my best teal dress shirt and the four of us eat our steak in the dim restaurant. I stare at the bottom of my glass as I drink. I'm still trying to process the death of the Steelers' season, but I'm also trying to remember what's happened here in Vegas, trying to ensure that these memories will stay with me when winter break is over and I'm back in Prescott. Something to look back on fondly as I stagger through the semester with no friends and no girlfriend and no football.
At the end of our meal, we get back in our charcoal gray rental car and turn on the sports radio channel. The Seahawks beat the 49ers 42-13. Ten more dollars, down the drain.
Week Seventeen – Five Hundred
I wake up at one in the afternoon on Sunday in my high school bed in Albuquerque. Today is the final day of the 2012 NFL season. Through my door I can hear my mom watching her favorite team, the Colts, in the living room. Despite only winning two games last year, the Colts have made the playoffs. I reach over to my dresser and pull my laptop onto the bed with me. I log onto ESPN.com to see the score of the Steelers' game against the Browns in Pittsburgh. It's early in the fourth quarter, and the Steelers lead 17-10.
It's hard for me to care about the game, now that the Steelers are eliminated from playoff contention. The only thing for the Steelers to gain by winning today is an 8-8 record. If they can end this season on a high note, they'll be .500. Not a winning season, but not a losing one either.
I figure I should get up and shower, but I want to see how the Steelers game ends first. So I lie in bed for close to an hour, watching the clock dwindle down on the ESPN homepage. The Browns drive into Steelers' territory a couple times, but can't score. Late in the game, the Steelers score another touchdown to take a 24-10 lead. And that's the final score. The Steelers win and finish the year 8-8. .500. I get out of bed and take a shower.
And that's the way the 2012 Pittsburgh Steelers season ended. With one last bright spot in a season of disappointment. One more rise on the roller coaster. And now comes eight months of absence, eight months of longing for the next season, for the opportunity to ride that roller coaster again.
Hunter S. Thompson titled his suicide note "Football Season is Over." I completely understand. Those of us who are fanatical about sports, we live and die for our teams. That's what I'm like. Sports is deeply personal to me, at times feeling too precious to even talk about. That magnifies the importance of every game, and the importance of the whole season is multiplied exponentially.
And if your team wins the Super Bowl, that importance you place on the season pays off. You get to spend the entire off-season bathed in the glow of ultimate fulfillment. All the emotions you poured into the season turn positive, and you carry with you the joy of knowing that everything in this one area of your life has gone as well as it possibly can.
But there are thirty-two teams in the NFL, and only one can win the Super Bowl. That means that there are thirty-one fanbases who have to see their team eliminated, from the basement dwellers eliminated in November to those knocked out in the Wild Card round, the Divisional Playoffs, the Championship Games, and finally the loser of the Super Bowl. To me, that elimination means a sudden shift in the way I view the world, a pall that hangs over me in the weeks and months that follow. And for those like me, those who live and die for their teams, it means the same. When our team is eliminated, we all die. But those who aren't sports fans, they don't know. They don't know about the thirty-one genocides that take place every winter.
And when the odds of achieving that nirvana are only one in thirty-two, it can almost seem foolish to put one's self through all those eliminations. Sports is the greatest passion in my life, and yet there have been times when I've asked myself if the good sports brings into my life outweighs the bad. Perhaps the reason I continue to watch sports is for the same reason broke men gamble and barflies drink, because you've stuck with this obsession for too long and now there's nowhere else to go, and this is all you have.
But I know it's nothing that grim. I've been fortunate enough to see two Steelers Super Bowl victories in my life thus far, and I wouldn't trade those moments for anything. If I were to give up sports, I would lose the opportunity to have more moments like that, more years where my team is the one out of thirty-two. And even the losing seasons like this one have value. If I gave up sports, I would have missed out on the optimism I felt after our victory against the Bengals in week seven, or the joy and hope I felt after the Steelers beat the Giants in New York, or the thrill of watching Charlie Batch beat the Ravens. So when the new football season comes in September, I'm going to do the only thing I can do, the only thing I want to do: buy the ticket and take the ride once more.
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A non-fictional series of vignettes I wrote in 2012, detailing the Pittsburgh Steelers' 2012 season.
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