The 12 Year-Old in Me Wants the Saints to Win

When you break professional sports down to their core...when you peel off the layers of money, contract negotiations, and free agency that swirl around and cloud the surface. When you take the business side out of it...the TV revenues, the sponsors, and the seemingly limitless advertising. What you're left with is a sport from the perspective of a 12 year old.

I didn't appreciate it then, but when I was 12 years old I peaked.

I'm an avid sports fan still, 30 years later, but it hasn't been the same since I was 12. Twelve is the age of sporting innocence and sporting bliss. That's the age when sports transcends life. Sadly, after 12 is when you start to realize the athletes you idolize actually get paid to play. After 12 you notice contract squabbles, holdouts, and free agency. After 12 the guys you cheered and idolized generally have packed their bags and been shipped off to another team to play for. They happily wear the enemy's uniforms. We've all been betrayed by a favorite player. No matter how much you love sports, you can't deny that it's never as much fun as when you were 12.

On the other hand, when you're younger than 12 you may be a sports fan, and you may idolize the players and watch every game, but you simply aren't old enough to appreciate your city's place in the world. And that's the missing ingredient. I grew up in Buffalo, NY. Until I reached the age of 12, I had no idea Buffalo had such a self-induced inferiority complex. I had no idea that the rest of America looked down on Buffalo the same way 1st Class looks down at steerage. Heck, I thought Buffalo was in the big leagues as far as American cities go.

So, when you turn 12, it's at that confluence of time and age and wisdom that the sporting world crystalizes and fulfills its very simple promise. That's when you realize this assorted collection of characters you watch each game, known as players and coaches, takes to battle for your city. That's when the games take on a higher significance. That's when the fate of your city rides on each outcome.

At its core, professional sports is all about a collection of players and coaches coming together, playing games to represent a city and its citizens. That's how it was in the beginning. We lose sight of that with free agency, Big Money, and non-stop player movements...but it's still there. And every so often a sports story develops to remind us of this.

This year that story is in New Orleans. The New Orleans Saints are in the Super Bowl tomorrow, playing against Peyton Manning's Colts. The Colts are trying to win another Super Bowl, but the Saints are playing for the life of their city and fans. Drew Brees and his teammates are carrying the weight of a city on their shoulders. In the past 4 years, post-Katrina New Orleans has moved from a city at the abyss, to a city with a pulse, to a city daring to hope again. The Saints have been a large part of that comeback story. The people of New Orleans identify with the players on that team, and likewise, the players identify with their fans. It is a true love story, not unlike the Brooklyn Dodgers and their fans in baseball's glory days. It is a special and unique moment when a team can lift a city, or when a city can lift a team. In Super Bowl XLIV, we may just see both. And for one night anyway, an entire city could remember what it feels like to be 12 again.