Seahawks' Quarterback
Russell Wilson Says "Our plan is to hopefully win another one next year."
By Jesse Jose
A Cup O' Kapeng Barako
Go Hawks!
I don't really watch football games. I think it's a brutal stupid sports, like boxing.
I prefer watching NBA games. It's more exciting for
me to watch, especially when Michael Jordan used to play in it. I
loved watching him fly through the air to dunk that ball. And before
him, years ago, "Magic" Johnson. He was called "Magic," because of the
magic tricks he did to shoot that ball into the basket. But AIDS got
him and slowed him down.
In my teenage years, I used to play basketball, street basketball, that is, wearing only my tsinelas. Well, that's how we, Filipinos, played basketball in the Philippines back then. Right there on the streets, with rules made up as the game progressed. A fistfight usually ended our games.
The most coveted footwear then for us wannabe
Filipino NBA players, was a pair of Converse. If you had this to wear,
you were the star player on our street basketball.
I don't realty mean to talk about Philippine basketball or how we played the game back then.
I meant to talk about football and Seattle Seahawks winning the Super Bowl XLVIII and that much-coveted Lombardi trophy.
Like I said I don't really like watching football.
But the enthusiasm here in Seattle was so contagious, and so
overpowering and deafening with the screams of "Go Hawks!," that I said
to myself, "WTF, I might as well join my fellow Seattlelites in
brutality and screaming, "Go Hawks!" On the streets prior to the final
game, we Seattlelites, greeted each other, "Go Hawks!" and slapping each
other's hand with "gimme five."
Our team is the Seattle "Seahawks," and the opposing team is the Denver "Broncos."
So together with my wife and son, Jonathan, we
watched the final game, called "Superbowl" on TV this past Sunday. I
don't understand football, so I asked a lot of questions from my wife
and son as the game progressed. Bit by bit I began to understand how
the game was played. My wife and my son are Seahawks fans, you see.
The fans of our team are called the "12th man." Eleven players are on
the field ... and the so-called 12th man are the wildly, cheering fans
in the bleachers.
I learned that the so-called "quarterback" is the
captain of the team, who calls the shots and who throws the ball to the
team's "running back" or to the "corner back," or to whoever and
whatever kind of "backs" are wide open to run with that ball to a
"touchdown." Of course, the defense of the opposing team have to stop
the man with the ball at all costs. And this where the brutality of the
sports emerges.
During this game, despite of the screams of
Seahawks' 12th man, you can literally imagine hearing bodies smashed
against each other, and the players' grunts and curses.
Our quarterback is a young guy, newly-drafted and
inexperienced, named Russell Wilson, whereas the opposing team
has Peyton Manning, a "legend" daw as a quarterback, who had won multiple games for his team.
Prior to this game, the national media described and
called the Seahawks the "underdogs." And that our team was
"unprepared" for the Superbowl against he Broncos. And that our
quarterback was merely a "liability" because of his age and
inexperience.
How wrong they were!
The game was already in the third quarter, yet the
Broncos had only scored ZERO! Whereas the Seahawks already had 29
points. The game ended with 43 for the Seahawks; 8 for the Broncos!
It was a drubbing and a trampling, and clearly an ass-kicking of the Broncos!
In an interview, Peyton Manning, the quarterback for
the Broncos, said the reason they lost was because of the loud
screaming of the 12th man. His team mates daw couldn't hear his call. Phooey!
Then, a couple of days when our Seahawks team had
all came back home to Seattle, the city gave them a salute, a parade and
a super-heroes welcome.
Seattle Times, the city's sole newspaper screamed on
its headline in big, bold letters this one word: CHAMPS! And below
it was a huge photo of Russell Wilson, hoisting the Lombardi Trophy,
with coach Pete Carroll at his side.
Seattle's 12th man -- as many as 700,000 strong --
mobbed downtown like a "Legion of Boom." They painted their faces and
pets in team colors (blue and green). They flooded highways, streets
and sidewalks.
They screamed until their throats hurt.
They chanted "Seahawks! Seahawks! Seahawks!"
Then exactly at noontime, the fans unleashed an
ear-splitting roar that complied with Seattle Mayor
Murray's proclamation to participate in a "Moment of Loudness" for our
team.
The loud exhilarating victory celebration was history in the making.
The last time Seattle celebrated a major sports title was when the SuperSonics won the NBA Championship in 1979.
And what's the next sports victory celebration for Seattle?
The Seahawks' young and "inexperienced" quarterback,
Russell Wilson, said, "Our plan is to hopefully win another one for you
next year."
Go Hawks! That's all, folks. JJ
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