On Watching a Losing Football Team

“Illegal forward pass?!” I scream and curse

At figures clad in red and white, who rush

Across the screen of my HDTV

Without apparent purpose or knowledge

Of fundamental rules that guide their game.

“You cannot throw a pass beyond the line

Of scrimmage.  I knew that in junior high

And I was just an offensive lineman!”

These are our Kansas City Chiefs.  These are

Professionals whose salaries could fund

The yearly budgets of small nation-states.

These are the ones who pull the faithful crowds

Into their palace by the Interstate –

The loyal fans who buy expensive tickets

In play-off years as well as in the years

When losses and ineptitude were all

A ticket-buyer really could expect.

There was that one triumphal year, of course,

All the way back in 1969.

The names of heroes ring the playing field:

Hank Stram, Len Dawson, Buck Buchanan, Culp.

The giants of a generation past.

Since then, incompetence has held free reign.

I change the channel and see across the state.

Blue jerseys, helmets featuring curled horns

Appear beneath a dome, on AstroTurf.

St. Louis Rams fight to end the first half

Losing by only a single touchdown.

Each time I watch the Rams I turn my thoughts

To 1999: Warner and Faulk,

Isaac Bruce, Torry Holt, and Az Hakim.

The Greatest Show on Turf, we called them then.

In recent years the Rams have struggled hard

To win even a single game or two.

This is the story of the NFL

Here in Missouri.  Whether Chiefs or Rams,

Or even old St. Louis Cardinals football –

Big Red, the nickname they were always called,

To separate them from the baseball team.

We get a season, maybe two at best,

Of winning ball and playoff contention.

But then we go back to familiar ways:

Mediocrity, frustration, and doubt.

Can the Chiefs get a franchise quarterback?

Do they have a coach who knows how to win?

St. Louis fans don’t know if Bradford can stay

Healthy all season. Will Kroenke take them

Back to Los Angeles?  Is either club

Able to build a winning team this year?

The fault, Missouri fans, is in our hope.

Each year we hope for quality and wins,

But Chiefs and Rams betray us every year.

Why do we watch?  Why do we pay for tickets?

Why do we bundle up and brave the cold

December winds that blow across the prairies

Then up the Kansas and Missouri Rivers,

And drive through Arrowhead to chill the bones

Of foolish or foolhardy fans therein?

Why do we fight downtown St. Louis traffic

To see a game we know our team will lose?

In childhood years I went to church and heard

That faith is substance of what I hope for

And evidence of things I have not seen.

But I know better now.  St. Paul once said,

That of faith, hope, and love, love is the greatest.

There may be something to be said of faith.

The souls who pack cold Arrowhead each week

Could say something about their faith, their hope,

That this will be the year we’ve waited for.

But love goes farther, deeper than blind faith.

Some sort of love commands me watch each week.

Perhaps not love of team, per se, because

Pro football is a business, not a love.

But it’s love of family and memory.

It’s watching with my father and grandfather

As Rams beat Titans in the Super Bowl.

It is recalling fall and winter Sundays

In graduate school, and watching Chiefs matches

With friends, and with the family of the girl

I was dating and trying to impress.

It was the same as when we used to go

To see the baseball Cardinals back when

They were no good, in the early nineties.

We listened to our grandpa tell stories

Of the Gashouse Gang, Gibson, Stan the Man.

It was the same when I was in college

At Mizzou, following a no-good team

Before the SEC and Pinkel years,

Remembering the first few games I saw

In person, in Columbia, when I

Was just a child, amazed by lights, and crowds,

And sounds that filled and rocked the stadium.

I watch because these memories are so dear

That they can give me cheer, even when my teams

Are awful, and amount to nothing more

Than one big state-wide disaster.