Super Bowl LI: An Atlanta Sports Fan’s Day in the Sun
For the first time since the 1999 World Series, an Atlanta sports team is playing for all the marbles, and Georgians are ecstatic.
January 31, 1999: Super Bowl XXXIII. This was the first time, and until next Sunday, the last time, that the Atlanta Falcons was playing in the single largest and most influential annual sporting event in the world. I was 24 days old. I watched the game on my dad’s lap, wearing a Falcons onesie. Unfortunately, the Falcons got smacked by the Broncos, led by a 90-year old John Elway, and the Falcons are still ring-less.
As I said, I was less than a month old. I couldn’t really understand what was going on in front of me, let alone analyze the performance of the players, the comedy of the commercials, and the importance of the event for fellow Georgians. My dad, however, was the biggest Atlanta sports fan around. He was the type of guy who would go to a Braves game, sing their praises when they won, and when they lost, would throw his hat out the car window, scream that he’s not a Braves fan anymore, and then have my mom stop the car to pick his hat up. They both knew that he would never turn his back on the Braves. He couldn’t. They meant too much to him. The same went for the Falcons, Thrashers, and Hawks.
That love for Georgian sports teams was passed on to me. The main differences between my dad’s fandom and mine is the fact that my dad was able to watch one Falcons Super Bowl appearance and five Braves World Series appearances, with one victory out of the bunch. I’ve seen the Georgia baseball team play in and lose one College World Series. (Another difference is the fact that he threw hats out of cars, and I throw whatever I can grab at the television).
Neither generation of Atlanta sports was super successful, but mine has never seen any sort of title. Mine has gotten used to mediocrity. Mine has never even come close to sniffing a championship. These past two decades of Atlanta sports has created pessimists for its fans. We thought we were cursed. We thought we didn’t deserve success. We thought we were supposed to be bad. A friend of mine said she was shocked to watch the Falcons crush the Packers, because she “thought Atlanta teams always sucked.” Not anymore.
We’re ready. We’re ready to be win a title. We’re ready to be the best. We’re ready to be champions. It’s just the Falcons now, but I, for one, think the future is bright for the state of Georgia. Dwight Howard and Paul Millsap are playing like All-Stars for the Hawks; The Braves have one of the best farm systems in Major League Baseball, as well as a slew of young stars in the Majors, such as Mike Foltynewicz, Mallex Smith, and Dansby Swanson to go along with the man who should’ve won the NL MVP last year, Freddie Freeman; Kirby Smart is keeping Georgia’s best high school prospects at home for the Dawgs; Georgia Tech has wins over North Carolina and Florida State in basketball; the Falcons have a core of young studs in Devonta Freeman, Tevin Coleman, Austin Hooper, Keanu Neal, Deion Jones, as well as the best players in the league in Matt Ryan and Julio Jones.
I’m excited. I have never been in this situation before. For the first time in my life as a sports fan, one of my teams is on the edge of euphoria. I’m ready to Rise Up with my Dirty Birds, and so are the rest of us Georgians, whether we be lifelong fans who’ve struggled for years, or newcomers who are excited about the future. This Falcons Super Bowl is just the beginning, though. Who knows, maybe the Braves, Hawks, Dawgs, Jackets, or an unnamed NHL expansion team will be next (wishful thinking on that last one).
