“It was a nice run, Kev. Had to close out someday. Nobody wins them all.”

In the stunning aftermath of yet another Russell Wilson victory over a Super Bowl winning quarterback (this time, himself), I find myself wanting to wallow in the unanswered questions which followed that game. But, along this run of improbable successes, I seem to have lost sight of the fact that I am a Seattle sports fan, and yesterday’s game was not the anomaly. Sure, I have snarky remarks that I could use to turn this into a caustic, laugh-so-you-don’t-cry piece, but the truth is that I am still proud of my team. Unlike last season, where a run to the Super Bowl looked unstoppable, and the Lombardi Trophy, a foregone conclusion, this season was heart and soul. It seemed that going into mid-November, the curse of the Super Bowl champions was nestled snugly upon us, and we could look forward to next year. And then this team of Sportsball heroes that nobody else seemed to want decided that they they didn’t want to go whimpering off into the night. They won every game left, and strode into the postseason, looking like the championship team we’d seen the year before. And even after the first three quarters of the NFC Championship, where it looked like all hope was lost, they managed to pull off a comeback that even the Seahawks’ faithful would have been hard-pressed to imagine.

There have been calls for a certain offensive coordinator’s head on a silver platter. And honestly, with the judgement shown with that final call, it might be an idea worth revisiting. But let’s not lose sight of the fact that this is Seattle team, and sooner or later, something like this was bound to happen. The Seahawks are now 1-2 on the big stage, and don’t have another chance to go after back-to-back championships for another two years, at least. The Patriots walked away with yet another victory, and it looks like the team that best personified the Bush era isn’t quite ready to fade into that long night. But Seattle should hold its head up high: there will be other chances for athletic glory, and Tom Brady and Ben Roethlisberger aren’t going to be around forever. The Seahawks have given the city of Seattle something to unite behind, and we will stand with them, good times or bad.

A friend of mine posted that she’d like to see them given a parade, despite the loss. I’m sure that the rest of the country would mock us for not knowing how parades are supposed to work, but I think it’s a wonderful idea. We have all had days where we just couldn’t get it done, professional missteps that we’d rather no one knew about. The lucky thing for the rest of us, is that when we screw up, it’s usually not on a global stage. We quickly look around to make sure that no one saw us, and then do our best to make sure that something like that can’t ever happen again. It’s too easy to say you’re with someone through thick and thin, and then want to pile on when they seem hell-bent on snatching defeat from the jaws of victory. I’m fairly certain that there is nothing that any of us can say that will make anybody on that team feel worse than they do already. But with the narrative against them, and criticism bubbling up from everyone who saw the game, and knows they would have called it better, perhaps it’s time to tell our team something that they haven’t heard: Thank you.

And no, not the sarcastic mumbled thanks that spill out of one’s mouth like a toddler forced to apologize, but a genuine offer of gratitude for the simple joys we’ve been provided throughout the past few years, with a touch of sympathy, because we’re human beings, and not just raging animals. On one of the worst days of your life, it’s not uncommon for everyone to seem lined up against you. But sometimes just a simple reassurance from someone who matters to you, or even just a well-meaning stranger, can make all the difference. I’m aware that this is just a requiem for Sportsball, and that there are so many other things that deserve our full attention. But I’ve also spoken in the past of the banality of evil, and how the world might be a better place if we could just keep trying to fill it with random acts of kindness. So let’s start today, and never let it fade. Let’s stand together as the Twelfth Man and show that we support one another. It’s the easiest thing in the world to knock someone down a peg, but if there are enough us, we might manage some heavy lifting, and bring them back up again.

There are those who say that to survive in a world of ubiquitous terrorism, we must be just as ruthless as those who seek to do us harm. We must bend the rules which bind our hands, and keep us from our victory. We’ve all been hearing it for thirteen years, and, like trickle-down economics, I’m pretty sure it’s been debunked. I mean, yes, we can probably gain success against those who might do us harm if we toss out all civility. But those rules are not in place to protect the people we are up against: they are to protect us from ourselves. The “enemy combatant” who is spared from torture is probably relieved, I’m sure. But the moment we decide that we are above the very laws we’ve put in place, and seek vengeance because justice has eluded us, we are no better than those who seek to do us harm; actually, as they have no illusions about what is that they are doing, and why they have been doing it, it makes us worse. We will be hurt. People will take advantage of us. There will be times when we will lose. But we will not let the sting of failure keep us down, nor the seeming futility of goodness rob us of our decency. We will stand up for that which we believe in, and keep standing until the light, and all which it has come to represent, has driven back the shadows, not only from ourselves, but from everyone frightened by the night.

-Tex