Sea. Hawks. And other bandwagons.

Super Bowl 49 could not have been more scripted for my own personal gain. The Seahawks were down, but just barely, and only one yard away from a touchdown and a repeat Super Bowl victory.

And then Russell Wilson threw the ball. Millions of dreams everywhere, crushed. Instantly. You could hear the wailing and gnashing of teeth of an entire city that had jumped onto a bandwagon as it tumbled into a metaphorical abyss. And me? I wanted to savor it, every moment of it. I wanted to go on to a street corner and laugh at every passing person dressed in the sad colors of blue and green. I had dreamed of this day.

Okay, maybe not that far. I didn’t actually do any of that. Good thing too, because it’s kind of an asshole thing to do. Like telling someone to go to hell, being surprised that God actually answers prayers, and then realizing you’ve just sent someone to hell and you’re probably next in line.

For all its negative connotations, bandwagons can be fun. Football, like basketball, baseball, or especially the World Cup, are sports where people build bonds simply because of their geographic location. It sounds kind of stupid on paper (Hey, let’s all cheer together and the only thing we have in common is that we live right next to each other!), but works fantastically in practice. It might be a bandwagon, but dammit, this is our bandwagon. And even if you don’t live in the same home as your parents or your grandparents, you jump on the bandwagon because the people on the bandwagon look like they’re having fun. 

It’s why I love my hometown Golden State Warriors, and when I say “love,” I mean it the way most of us do—I love you, but only when you provide some sort of concrete benefit to me, first.

I was too young to know the Warriors during the Chris Mullin years, but I adopted them as my own anyway. My older brother likely had something to do with it. My first real foray into Warriors fandom was when Baron Davis showed up, which was a glorious few years but eventually fizzled into nothing but dreams past their expiry dates. For the next few years, I’d blame my lack of interest in the team to the fact that I was living overseas, but it doesn’t take an ace detective to figure out the real reason is neither Steph Curry nor Klay Thompson existed in the Warriors universe yet.

Or take the time when I was once in England and wanted to experience “real” football, live. There were tickets to a game featuring two teams called Arsenal and Chelsea, which were ungodly expensive because apparently those two teams are rivals, and so I resorted to watching the game at a bar instead.

“Who do you cheer for?” I asked a mutual friend turned tour guide.

“Well I’m not huge into football, but I do like Arsenal,” she said.

“They’re the red ones?”

She nodded.

I checked the score. She had chosen wisely. Arsenal was leading Chelsea at half-time, three to zero—

“Nobody says ‘zero’ here,” she corrected. “They say ‘nil.’”

They were up three to nil.

The next day, I went out, bought an Arsenal jersey, and quickly requested smartphone notifications from ESPN. If someone understands bandwagons, it’s me.

When I first moved to Seattle, the Seahawks bandwagon hadn’t arrived yet. No one in my office could name more than two players, or knew how many players a team can have on the field. 

And then, the realization that the Seahawks could actually, possibly win the championship of America’s premiere sport, worked its magic. Overnight, everyone came into work wearing blue and green jerseys. Every Friday became “Blue Friday.” The number 12 showed up in windows, on flags, on cars. People broke out into chants at random, sometimes inopportune moments.

“Sea—” one person yells.

“HAWKS!” everyone else responds.

Sea. HAWKS. Sea. HAWKS.

To be perfectly clear, it’s not enough to yell “HAWKS.” You have to raise your intonation a little at the end, as if you’re asking a rhetorical question. More like, “HAWKS?”

I treated this exhibit like one would a zoo, where your participation is limited to laughing in amusement while watching from afar behind the relative safety of plexiglass. Because sometimes the zoo fights back.

“What are you, a 49ers fan?” these strange creatures would ask. It was like they were cursing at me, the way they’d throw some stank on the words “49ers.” I felt like I was supposed to be offended but instead I was just confused.

It reminded me of the way people criticized me when we’d go out for fish tacos.

“They’re alright. Not bad.” I said once, after being asked for my opinion.

“He’s just snobby about his fish tacos,” someone at the table scoffed with disgust. “It’s because he’s from California.”

This struck me as odd. I hadn’t mentioned California. And even if I had, it’s not like someone offered me a croissant and my response was, “I’m from Paris, and I, politely refuse, to eat anything but a Parisian, krwa'sã.” That would’ve been an asshole thing to say.

I was never a “49ers fan,” and never a huge defender of San Francisco, let alone California. I couldn’t name a single player on the current 49ers roster. Or on any previous iteration of the team except for someone having to do with the state of Montana. I still can’t.

But I quickly learned that in Seattle, the 49ers were hated. Not like “I have a mild distaste for well-done steak,” but the kind of hate you’d have for an ex because they ruined your finances in the separation and then they also took your dog.

Before Super Bowl “Russell Wilson throws the ball away,” there was Super Bowl 47, between the 49ers and the Baltimore Ravens, which I watched with a group of about thirty friends. I expected the usual sports jabs: the encouraging of the Ravens to “beat down San Francisco,” that 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick “just looks like a douche,” and “he should have his neck broken.” But then sometimes people joke about something and you laugh, and then they joke about it five more times and you start wondering if they’re being serious. 

I found myself curled up in a corner of the couch, knees propped against my shoulders, trying not to show any emotion at the game but desperately wanting to cheer when the 49ers made any kind of successful advance, because come on, someone has to stand up for San Francisco, right? But like I have done in the past, I chickened out. When the 49ers eventually lost, people jumped up and down, laughing in front of one of the few other Bay Area natives in the room.

A friend tried to spin it: We should be happy because Baltimore needed the morale win more than San Francisco did. This made me feel worse, because now not only did my adopted-for-a-few-hours team lose, I was an asshole for not being happy that Baltimore won. And then there’s the hypocrisy that would occur if San Francisco had been swapped with Seattle.

I wish I hadn’t taken it personally, which would’ve been the correct response, because people who don’t care always seem to win in the relationship. But in the heat of the moment, I did. And this was how I lost my way and began scheming up my latent dreams of taking joy in seeing the Seahawks lose. I became a contrarian, and like all good contrarians, I wanted everyone to be unhappy. As many people as possible. I hoped the Seahawks would get to the Super Bowl, almost win, and then lose.

This of course, didn’t work. Because the next year the Seahawks won Super Bowl 48 and the bandwagon hit fever pitch.

But then something else changed.

In the months leading up to the season of ill-fated Super Bowl 49, I became friends with my coworker Gabriel and his wife Clara. They were locals, Seahawks fans at heart, and they invited me to go watch one of the season’s first games at their house. 

I originally agreed because I thought of it just as a way to pass the time, and I actually showed up late. The Seahawks were losing, which of course made me happy, but then they started scoring touchdowns and eventually won. People celebrated with applause, and I decided being petty wasn’t really worth it, so I joined them.

“Dan, you’re like a good luck charm,” Gabriel told me. “You come in at halftime and suddenly we start winning. You have to come again next week.”

Which, I did. And then I went the week after that, and the one after that. They kept calling me their good luck charm. But really, I just became a regular. They had invited me to hop on the bandwagon, even if only for the ride.

Dan, why are we losing? Gabriel texted me one Sunday when I had chosen an afternoon nap over joining them for the start of the game. COME OVER NOW.

As the weeks passed, more and more people started showing up at Gabriel’s place. The gatherings became more elaborate with craft beers, fancy nachos, and classy buffalo wings (because this is Seattle). Gabriel started a tradition where whenever the Seahawks won, he’d run around the living room and high-five everyone whether they liked it or not.

And then came that Super Bowl game. The Seahawks and the Patriots. Russell Wilson threw the ball. The Patriots intercepted it. The Patriots won. I expected to quietly start celebrating, but I did not. You can spend so long anticipating one exact moment, one split second, that when the moment finally arrives, your original plan goes out the window because you’re no longer the same person anymore.

I didn’t expect to be on the bandwagon when this happened, surrounded by people so upset with Russell Wilson for throwing the ball, disheartened that their mighty team could actually lose, and filled with so much grief they were genuinely experiencing sadness. And so I felt the emotion I least wanted, but should have seen coming: I was sad. 

Because laughing at the bandwagon once you’re a part of it—even when you’re just there for the ride—is kind of an asshole thing to do.

“This sucks,” Gabriel moped, half-stomping around the house as if he’d never experienced the reality that the Seahawks could truly come this close and still lose.

“Oh well. Next year,” Clara said with determination before promptly starting to gather glasses and plates—revealing the true fan of the household.

That is the one benefit of the bandwagon hitting the ditch. Some people fall out and complain about getting a little bit dirty. The real fans though, they know that this is what happens most of the time. And so you dust yourself off and climb back on board for the next season. Memories are short, and depression doesn’t last forever. Soon the next season started and we were right back into it.

Dan WTF are you? Gabriel texted me one Sunday afternoon. We’re down two touchdowns. To the 49ers.

I chuckled. Relax, it’s not even halftime. Good luck charm incoming. They won that game.

Eventually the Seahawks snuck into other parts of my life. I often traveled for work, and no matter where we went, I started finding myself with coworkers at Seahawks bars, which is a concept truly unique to geographically-based sports. Team-focused sports bars are like tiny refuges inside a city that could otherwise be entirely hostile to you. They’re hubs you can go to, expecting to make new friends simply because you have in common, one of the most powerful cross sections of life: where home is.  

Which, is exactly what happened when we went to New York. We found ourselves in an Irish pub that doubled as a Seahawks bar, face to face with the last group of Seattleites we expected to meet on the road: firefighters. The three firemen had flown in to represent our city in a national firefighters gathering of sorts. If that sounds vague, it’s because we quickly got the details out of the way and moved on to drinks, laughter, and random stories of Seattle life. What brings firefighting and software development together? Being from the same city, in a foreign city. Obviously.

A big group of us did the same thing in Austin. I had forgotten there was a game one night, until one coworker, Matt, brought it up. “I’m gonna go watch the game,” he said after finishing all work responsibilities for the night. “Apparently there’s a bar that’s friendly to the Seahawks up on 6th.”

“I didn’t know you were a Hawks fan,” I said, surprised. Even if you work with someone day in and day out, it doesn’t always make you friends. Sometimes, there just aren’t enough shared bonds for that, yet. “I might come join you.”

I did end up going, but not until halftime. Which, seems to be my M.O.

“Dan!” he yelled, waving me over as I walked in. “I saved you a seat!”

I wiggled my way through several packs of bodies to get to where he sat before sliding uncomfortably into the open space on the bench. Touching shoulder to shoulder with strangers isn’t my favorite thing to do, but if I have to, I’ll take that kind of touch at a sports bar over sitting on a long airplane flight.

“Hey, what do you want to drink?” Matt asked.

“I can go get it—”

“I’m buying,” he ordered emphatically. 

“Uh, you sure?”

“What’s a drink between friends?” he grinned. “I’m five beers in. You gotta catch up.”

If we weren’t already friends, by the end of the night we definitely were.

Because then the Seahawks scored and the place erupted. Matt and I clanged glasses, high-fived, and then turned to do the same with everyone around us. In what seemed like a very large bar, but really was just one tiny street corner in the big city of Austin, Texas, a microcosm of Seattle had been born.

“Sea!” someone proclaimed over the bar’s sound system.

“HAWKS!?” everyone questioned, very loudly, in response. Like clockwork. No matter where you are in the world. Whether Seattle, New York, Austin, it doesn’t seem to matter.

“Sea!”

“HAWKS!?”

The Seahawks won that night and the celebratory drinking and physical contact began. I can’t think of very many other situations where hugging the person next to you, simply because they happen to be there, is a societally-accepted gesture.

“I don’t even know you,” I wanted to tell everyone who I embraced but felt like it would’ve ruined the moment.

Sometimes I wonder if “don’t ruin the moment” would work as an excuse if I were to hug a random, attractive stranger on the street.

Unfortunately for Seattle, the Seahawks didn’t win that season either. But between house parties, meeting Seattle firefighters in New York, and an explosive night in Austin, the bandwagon was the scene for some of the most fun moments of that season. Sometimes, just being along for the ride is fun in and of itself.

Although, truth be told, I’m always a little relieved whenever Seahawks season ends. It means I can take off the Seahawks jersey that I don’t actually own, and probably never will, and in its place, I can pull out all of my Warriors shirts without fear of passive-aggressive retribution. 

RIP, Supersonics.

cover photo courtesy: www.spaceneedle.com