I grew up and still live around Fredericksburg, VA, and the one thing I got sick of hearing about pretty quick was how great the Washington Redskins were.
The first Super Bowl I ever even partially watched when I was a kid turned out to be the game where Marcus Allen and the Raiders wiped up the field with the Redskins, circa 1983. And I for one was happy about it.
My old car mechanic grandfather didn't seem to give a wet one about sports in general, outside of Nascar, which back then was a totally different animal than today. And boxing, back when you could catch a championship fight on the television live.
The Redskins were one of the top franchises of the 1980s, winning two Super Bowls out of three and coming back for a third win in 1991. Lots of Virginia born and bred followed that team...the Baltimore Colts had deserted the area, but the Redskins and their racially-divisive name and iconography remained.
The Carters, the male side of the two halves making up me, had a vested interest in the Dallas Cowboys. Don't know where they picked it up, but the fanmanship for the 'Boys probably stems from Dallas' general popularity since their inception. I don't think any of the Carters ever set foot in Dallas, Texas, but then that's true of many Cowboys supporters.
Now, the idea of supporting the "local" team never really occured to me, partly due to this alienated behavior among the Carter uncles, sons of my grandfather. My own father had about as much interest in sports as the man in the moon, but the uncles laid down the greenbacks in heavy fashion when the inevitable Redskins-Cowboys showdown occured. This was a standard conversational prodding among all younger men, and being a kid I was basically frightened by the intensity and anger which flowed from them. It didn't help that my 16 year old first cousin, Alan Carter, was a high school football star for the Courtland High School Cougars in the waning 1970s, early 1980s. The Carter men responded to the ritual of professional football and the wagering with drunken, bearded strangers. I just considered it all a part of something I'd never be part of: sports.
True to my word, I didn't think about or play sports throughout public schooling. In fact I "failed" gym class three years running. How one manages to do this is as complicated as Houdini escaping the watery coffin, but it was done.
Sometime after high school, working around the working men of Morton's Garage in Spotsylvania, I was again besieged with the banter of the sports enthusiasts around me. Something about the ferocity and humor, and the esoteric knowledge of players, coaches, and the colleges which had borne them, interested me. I recall asking one grizzled Redskin fan about the NFL game, and what it was all about.
I was instructed to watch a game on television, November 3rd, 1991, between the Redskins (undefeated halfway through the 16-game season) and the Houston Oilers, a 7-1American Football Conference underdog with a black quarterback named Warren Moon, captain of one of the most explosive offenses in the League.
When I watched the game, I had no idea what was going on. I watched it alone. I didn't know how many downs for a first down. It was like watching a fire, out of control. I couldn't relate to it.
But my general distaste for the Redskins' villainy (perceived in the inescapable hatred of their marching band, who all wore Indian garb and Chief's headdresses, in a display which disgusted me), and the gorgeous, angelic white of the Oilers uniforms, formed the good vs evil dynamic I'd grown up on, in superhero comic books, movies, and the like. Warren Moon, a smoothly handsome black man (and a rare non-white at the position of QB, for those long-ago days) and a rock-solid persona on the field, standing tall and brave, made him iconic. Like many sports fans, I perceived the innate heroism of the game...because it was not just a game. It was a battle of ideology as well, the evils of a titanically racist NFL regime vs the bold integrity of the underdog. Who, by the way, fought to the end, taking the superior Redskins into overtime before Moon threw a gorgeous interception to Hall of Fame cornerback Darryl Green, leading to a Redskins field goal and victory.
In total, at 2o years of age, I had seen the perfect football game, touching on all the important themes I'd developed my whole life. For all my dislike of the Redskins, it was their role as villain which simplified the game enough for me to understand. For the Oilers' part, and Warren Moon, they drew me to their bright potential, like a moth to flame.
The Oilers are defunct as a franchise today. In their day, they were considered perennial disappointments...a team of great potential never fulfilled. In fact, they were termed "chokers", never having the fortitude to win against what might be considered inferior teams in the Playoffs (and blowing a 35-point lead to the Buffalo Bills in the greatest team collapse in Playoff history). The Oilers were moved to Tennessee in the late 1990s, changed by Bud Adams into the Titans with a new draft pick black quarterback named Steve "Air" McNair, who would in time come within a yard of winning a Super Bowl some years later. Like the Oilers franchise, Steve McNair is no longer, but when he played he had a physical resemblance to Warren Moon, though without the smoothness and intelligence of Moon. But in the end, Warren Moon failed to win a championship; he's a Hall of Famer, the most prolific passer in professional history, but he didn't win it all. As one of those hard working men told me, Moon "would trade every yard he passed for to win a championship. Ask him." I have no doubt of it.
The Oilers broke my heart, and Moon for all his ability would fail with other teams as well. You could take the player out of Houston, but never take the Houston out of the player. As good as Moon made his teams, they never won consistently when it counted. Watching Moon proudly stand in the haze of another Playoff loss with his helmet hanging from his hand, preparing to talk to the media and, in mere weeks after, appear in the Pro Bowl, the annual celebration of The Best in the game, I could only feel agonized. That helmet must have been as heavy as an asteroid, and in those moments of loss as alien to our atmosphere. I can only say that many of today's players, in all sports, would learn much from watching Moon in those moments. To carry oneself knowing that young men, like me, looked up to you, expecting more than the player could possibly give, was a weight no ordinary man is comfortable with. But enduring? Yes, always.
