football memories, part II

In late 2005, Amina and I found out that we'd be taking a trip to Maui. She made her president's club at her new job, which meant we'd be going to Hawaii with some of her coworkers. We found this out in early December; two weeks later, the Steelers won their final three games to nab a wild card playoff spot.

Problem: according to the itinerary, we'd be in a DC-10 on our way back home during the entirety of the Super Bowl.

Amina promised that, should the Steelers make it to Detroit, we'd stay a few extra days. I went along with it, because (1) it seemed like a good deal, and (2) there was almost no way that they'd make it that far. These were the Bill Cowher Steelers we were talking about. A first round exit was almost preordained.

But, as we all know, fortune shined on the 2005 Steelers. First was the win in Cincinnati, which to be honest was a far better team that year. It's never good to root for injuries, but Kimo von Oelhoffen injured Carson Palmer at the beginning of the game and the Bengals weren't really the same team. The Steelers went into Indianapolis -- because they were the wild card team, the Steelers had to play every game on the road -- as the underdogs ... but again, fate intervened. Ben's tackle on the fumble return deserves to go down in Steeler history, right next to the Immaculate Reception, and ...



There's a reason this is one my most-viewed posts on Flickr. "Idiot kicker who got liquored up and ran his mouth off" -- couldn't have happened to a nicer guy.

The Steelers went to Denver. This was it -- win this game and I get two extra days in Maui. But that wasn't on my mind. All I could think was How will Cowher screw this one up? Because, you see, I'd been tempered to expect failure. There was no. way. in. hell. the Steelers would win this game.

And Ben came out and, with laser-like accuracy, took the Broncos' defense apart in the first half. I was downstairs, watching the game, and Amina was upstairs, doing whatever it is that women do when football games are on. She was in the bedroom at halftime and just turned on the TV to catch the score.

"Sweetie! Looks like we're staying an extra" --

"SHUT UP!" I screamed with more emotion than I'd expected I could muster. "DO NOT JINX THIS! THE GAME IS NOT OVER!"

That's how paranoid I was, and still am, about Steelers games. We were not going to talk about staying extra days because the Steelers had not won the game yet because there was still time for Cowher to screw things up and we were not going to tempt fate by assuming the game was over when there were still two quarters to play.

The Steelers hung on to win; it was a classic Cowher game, where a second half lead was nursed by conservative play calling, and the secondary failed just enough to make it seem like Denver could win, but in the end, the Steelers were celebrating at midfield.

Here we go ... Steelers ... here we go.