Superheroes

On seeing and believing

It’s football season. I’m aware of this only because the hostess at the Italian restaurant had her phone propped up beside her table assignments, secretly watching the Miami Dolphins play the Buffalo Bills in between seating guests.

I should’ve known it’s football season, but the fact that I didn’t does not make it a question of loyalty. If by definition, a fair-weather fan is one who only supports a team when things are going well, I’m not that. Yes, I will probably tune out if it’s a miserable watch, but I can’t even really be depended on for the good times either. I’m also not a frontrunner, which is a word I haven’t used since sixth grade, but growing up in New York back then, you either liked the Giants or the Jets, or you liked the Cowboys — and therefore you were a frontrunner.

I’m none of those things, really. I just found something else to do that day. This is an odd thing for sports fans to hear. It’s incomprehensible. When my neighbor, who knows I like football, sees me mowing my lawn on a Sunday afternoon with my headphones on, he rushes outside on a commercial break in an attempt to figure out if I’ve hit my head and forgotten what day it is.

When I was a kid, the New York Jets held practices at Hofstra University, a mere ten-minute drive from the house I grew up in — a big difference from the commute to their stadium, the Meadowlands, in Jersey. My father would take me a handful of times before the start of each season. I’d grip the chainlink fence and watch these superhero-sized men towering above me, blocking out the sun as they ran up and down the shoddy grass field, a long cry from the manicured astroturf they played on each Sunday.

There were no fancy jerseys or stadium lights. The players wore solid-color pinnies, with the quarterback donning a red one so that no one accidentally took out the franchise’s biggest investment, baking under the last remnants of the East Coast summer sun before it retreated until next July.

Just before the end of practice, my father would rush me over to the pavement where the players would exit the field. I’d again cling to the chainlink, this time hoping to grab the attention of one of these superheroes. I was too shy to disrupt their march to the locker room, so my father did my bidding for me. “Hey, how about an autograph for the kid?”

I had a large plastic helmet that I had them sign. I would stand there in awe each time, as though their superpowers were being transferred into that helmet and that maybe, if I put it on, I too could fly, or run at the speed of light, or smash through walls and feel no pain.

One time, as running back Scottie Graham scrawled his signature across my helmet, my dad had the gall to add, “Hey, how about a wristband for the kid, Scottie?” He paused, raised his eyebrows at my dad, then pulled the wristband off his arm and handed it to me. Despite my mother’s disgust, I refused to wash it, forever preserving the “S.G.” written in blue Sharpie just outside the Jets logo.

I may be a weak excuse for a sports fan these days, but I still get choked up anytime I come across one of those videos of an athlete making a kid’s day. Maybe it’s because they don’t have to. It’s not part of their job description. People love to hold them to that standard, and then act surprised that giving someone millions of dollars and asking them to demolish their body week after week does not breed a Disney character of a human being — but it’s simply not their job.

That said, the ones who make it their job are special. They’ve accepted the burden of their superpowers and wield them with responsibility. Like a king who’s wary of the crown, but dons it with duty when his time comes.

I may not know who’s playing half the time, but I still believe in superheroes.