The last few years have witnessed a string of crazy sporting results: the Sydney Swans, Geelong Cats and West Tigers all breaking long premiership droughts; the Tampa Rays making it all the way to the World Series, while the Red Sox and White Sox both won it.
Then there’s Argentina reaching the final four of the Rugby World Cup; Portsmouth meeting Cardiff City in the FA Cup Final’ and Spain and Greece both winning the European Championships.
The next one off the line is the Arizona Cardinals making the Super Bowl.
How big of a deal is this? Well, there is no bigger sports story than the Super Bowl. To get an idea of its magnitude, take the AFL Grand Final and multiply by the NRL Grand Final.
As for the Cardinals, they used to be a byword for incompetence and ineptitude. For all the teams which went nowhere and always seemed to make one mistake after another, the Cardinals are the crème de la crème.
The fact that they are now playing in the Super Bowl is mindblowing, but what exactly makes it a big deal?
There are certain ingredients a sporting team requires to fulfill this rags to riches story.
First and foremost, anyone else who knows anything about the sport holds you in utter disdain, disrespect and contempt. The team may have had success in a bygone era but nothing which was ever witnessed on colour television.
Perhaps not even black and white!
You only seem to win games once they are irrelevant. You certainly cannot win when the heat is on and the game means something. You are notorious for choking under pressure, and when it comes to that, you have a celebrated history. The few times in the past you have strung some good games together and made it through to the playoffs, you’ve immediately been bounced.
In the past, anyone who was remotely coordinated leaves, while the team became a home for expensive free-agents who do nothing but cash their cheque, over the hill has-beens and exciting draft picks who prove to be nothing but busts.
Your small fan base consists of people who don’t have much going for them. After all, why would anyone put themselves through all this agony and futility for nothing in return?
I can tell you why, because I went through the exact same thing with the Sydney Swans in 1996.
Every step of the way that year, people predicted the team would crumble like they always did. Regardless of what the team had accomplished, the doomsayers and naysayers couldn’t be swayed.
When Tony Lockett kicked that point there was suddenly an answer for “What’s it all about?”
We used to celebrate if we won a game which were nothing but footnotes on the sports pages. We were a glorified bye. The finals were impossible let alone winning them.
All those meaningless games now suddenly have meaning because without the past, the team wouldn’t have a present and definitely not a future. And when you grow up having to choose who you are barracking for between Essendon and Hawthorn or Hawthorn and Carlton you simply don’t believe that its your team in the Grand Final.
Like the Swans before them, the Cardinals will find there is no going back. There is no more successful a marketing campaign as a winning team, more so a team who wins playoff games.
In more ways than one, they both painted their towns red.
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