allenwebb

I am a long-time lurker and a big fan of this board. Grew up in Rochester and a huge Bills fan--my number one team to this day, though I have lived in Seattle since I was 30 (I'm now 46). Have gradually become a Seahawks fan and they are definitely my #1b team now. Have been to some great Seahawks games--last year's SB, and this year's NFC Championship game, most recently. Anyway, I feel like I may be one of a small number of people who has experienced the crushing emotions of being BOTH an intense Bills fan for wide right and an intense Seahawks fan for whatever we call the result on Sunday. Both were horrible in their own way; I'm not here to compare and contrast or offer any analysis (beyond the obvious that it is rather amazing to me that a man whom I will never meet or know, Bill Belichick, played a role in these two, searingly awful events that I will take to my grave). The only other thing I'd say is that going through something like this when you have a SB win under your belt is simultaneously better and worse than when you don't. Better because you have that set of memories to fall back on; worse because the contrast is so strong--I did not realize until attending the SB last year when the 'Hawks crushed the Broncos just how big a void there was in my heart from the Bills' 4 SB losses. A lot of that void was filled by last year's Super Bowl, and for this I will be eternally grateful to the Seahawks. I look forward to the day when Bills fans the world over have that void filled. Go Bills! And here's to the character that comes from rising above crushing defeat.

****Hello, Dadonkadonk***Fellow Seattle-ite Bills fan here*** If you decide to subject your kids to the Bills, let me know and we can try to get our clans together for a game. (I watch with my 6 and 3 year old sons at our neighborhood kid-friendly sports bar in Madison Park, McGilvra's) My story: 43 years old, lived in Rochester until I went away to college, haven't lived anywhere near Buffalo since, but have never for a moment stopped loving the Bills I became a fan for life--I remember thinking, "this is my team for good"--when I was 11, Joe Cribbs' rookie year. I even remember the moment: When he sliced through the Steelers' defense for the TD that iced their big win over the defending Super Bowl champions (final score was 28-10 the Bills were 5-0 at that point in the year, if memory serves correctly). Tough loss to the Chargers in the playoffs that year; but the next year my parents' took me to the Pats game when Fergy hit Roland Hooks on the Hail Mary play. Talk about hooked! That was a cold day; coldest football game I attended until 1987, my freshman year at Harvard, when it was 5 degrees at the Yale Bowl. By that time the Bills were on the rise. SB XXV was my senior year. I broke up with a girl on the spot on the night of the game when she came over afterwards and was not interested in talking about the Bills. Remember it vividly: ("You clearly have no idea who I am or what's important to me. Get out.") Have been in Seattle since 1999. My first few years here I lived with my best friend from high school in Rochester, who also wound up out here in a strange quirk of fate, and we went to a lot of games together. Less viewing since he moved away a few years ago. But I was in a bar with my older son on Sunday, watching the season opener, and we exchanged a hearty high-five when CJ Spiller brought us back to 21-7. I had hope at the moment. I always have hope; and I always will.

Impossible to generalize; at least 25 years ago, there were plenty of smart and not so smart people in both groups

I'm a Harvard grad (class of '91, much older than Fitz), and wanted to add a couple of things on this thread. First, I think some on this board are making a mountain out of a mole hill. Fitz's comments on the topic seem pretty balanced and, frankly, are consistent with the attitudes of many Harvard grads in many professions. Everyone hates the know it all Harvard a-hole, and most Harvard grads don't want to be that guy/gal. So it's pretty common for alums to simply not say much of anything about where they went to college and, if asked, to mention it and quickly move on. That doesn't mean they aren't proud of their school or are anti-intellectual or anything else. Nor do I think it's a bad reflection on our society to say that it hates a know-it-all a-hole. You can be smart or an a-hole, or smart and not an a-hole; the latter is better! Second, no disrespect to my alma mater, but becoming an NFL quarterback after playing at Harvard is a much more impressive accomplishment in my book than graduating from Harvard. Harvard isn't all that tough a school. Getting in is extraordinarily difficult, but once you're there, you can skate by if you want with a "gentleman's C" (no doubt a B minus these days with grade inflation!). Excelling at something at Harvard is what's impressive because in just about every area other than sports (academics, music, the school newspaper, otehr clubs) you're playing with/competing with some of the most impressive kids of your generation. That's the best thing about Harvard--it takes people who have been really successful, and throws them in together in a way that helps everyone who wants to push themselves to heights they didn't know existed. This is the case except for most sports (crew, squash, and sometimes hockey the big exceptions), where everyone knows they are playing for the love of the game, and where the competition--both internally, and with other Ivy League schools, is far, far, far from world class. All that makes Fitz's NFL achievement to me absolutely mind bogglingly impressive. I guarantee you he was getting zero encouragement from his non-football friends at school to pursue the NFL. Even his teammates probably thought he was nuts. He was a strong Ivy League quarterback, but that's rarely gotten anyone into the NFL. So the guy has got to have a great reservoir of internal commitment and self-confidence to have even tried. I suspect those traits are part of what makes him an effective leader. Although I live in Seattle now, I'm a Rochester native and have been a die-hard Bills fan since I started watching football. What a pleasure it is to see my home town and my undergraduate roots coming together. I never would have thought it possible! Go Bills!

It's always nice to be reminded of what went down on Jan. 3, 1993. With that said, my hope is that the game's place in history is more about the grit & determination of the Bills than Houston's collapse