This Super Bowl feels suspiciously like it was scripted for me.
The Seahawks have been my team for as long as I can remember. My first football game was Super Bowl XLVIII, watching the Legion of Boom embarass Peyton Manning, I was just 12 years old. The symmetry felt perfect: the Seahawks, the fans known as the 12s, and me right there at the same age, falling in love with the team. And then came Super Bowl XLIX. Watching them lose to the Patriots the next year was my first heart break. It’s the kind of sports moment you never fully shake, going from the joy of winning back to back, to realizing you are walking home empty handed. It’s a core memory, whether I asked for it or not.
Fast forward to the end of college, and I ironically chose to go to Boston for college. I lived in Boston, met my life long partner there, and learned how that city breathes sports. Somewhere along the way, the Patriots went from the team that broke my heart, to a team I occasionally even rooted for. Call it exposure therapy. Either way, they became part of my football identity too.
Which is why this Super Bowl rematch feels so perfect. This won’t be just a nostalgia game or a “remember when” Super Bowl. Just making the Super Bowl would’ve already exceeded my wildest dreams. But facing this team, the Patriots? The team that ripped my heart out as a kid, and left a gaping wound that has never really healed in my sports fandom? Everything about this Super Bowl feels personal. A fated rematch against the Patriots, twelve years after they broke the hearts of millions of Seahawks fans. My hometown versus my college town, taking place in San Francisco, where I currently live for dental school. The football God’s must be teasing me.
We’ll see if the Seahawks can pull it off again. There are no guarantee’s in life, and perhaps there may be heartbreak waiting at the end of this story. Once again the Seahawks look to do the unbelievable, and what better way to do it than win the second Super Bowl in franchise history 12 years after their first, for a fanbase that earned the nickname of “12th man”.