Last week, I got my first taste of football in the early fall just as winter was giving way to spring. Â
I accomplished this seasonal chicanery by traveling below the equator to the land of the other football. The destination was Sao Paulo, Brazil.
As you might know from reading this blog, FASTPORT's Brad Bentley and I journeyed to one of soccer's great capitals to attend the NFL Experience. Brad had purchased tickets for Jalen Hurts' Philadelphia Eagles' season opener against Jordan Love's Green Bay Packers at NeoQuimica Arena. The first NFL game played in South America gave us an excuse to visit the most populous Portuguese-speaking city in the world.
For me, that temporal shift I mentioned at the outset was not simply a matter of seasonal displacement. It was an actual jump backward through time that reminded me of my love of football beyond the game itself.
Today's blog post is designed to provide a backdrop for the upcoming Weekend 34's all-things-gridiron theme. Saturday's show carries the self-explanatory title "Fall Into Football," and we'll line up the morning to toss around memories of watching, following, and playing America's new national pastime. Sticking with the game plan, Sunday fires up the tailgate and your taste buds with "Wurst and Ten! Eat It Again!" We're looking for cherished recipes, favorite headquarters, and go-to game companions when setting the table right for the perfect viewing experience. Then again, it's your show. If it's about football, feel free to call in with an audible.
Let's go to Sao Paulo first.
It's an official megacity, and it feels like it. Coming in from the airport on Wednesday, I observed an urban landscape perpetually falling apart while simultaneously rebuilding itself. Fully realized graffiti looked fresh and seemed better cared for than the crumbling buildings it adorned. Public works were underway but seemed to be moving in fits and starts. The towering skyscrapers in the distance seemed to be on another planet and contrasted against the seemingly never-ending tracts of slums. The crushing poverty of the outskirts eventually gave way to a rough but muscular residential reality as the buildings in the background, at last, seemed closer.
The traffic was a genuine capoeira.Â
Balletically aggressive, the flow of transportation was generous towards those taking the initiative and harrowing for the overly cautious. Every driver I rode with fearlessly maintained the closest possible proximity to their fellow motorists. But they always left enough space for the city's distinctive vehicular wild card: the motoboys. Â
Sao Paulo's mad farrago delivery corps, motoboys-on-motorbikes exist in an alternate traffic reality. For them, there is no congestion, only non-stop movement between cars, trucks, and buses. As they zip in and out of rush hour gridlock, the motoboys are capable of producing shouts of surprise and winces of near-miss from even the most experienced of drivers. For the foreign passenger, it takes a couple of days to even connect the bleating honks of their horns to the split-second before they blur through the minuscule space between cars.
That energy was a preview of the verve of the city I was about to enter. It was an energy that also hurled me into a dangerous but vibrant world that began to ring with uncanny familiarity. But I could not place what I recognized and felt caught in a deja vu loop. Unable, as it were, to place the place. An elusive itch. Like the word you used to always use but now can't summon up. What was it?Â
I arrived in the Jardins neighborhood too early to check into my room. It is morning. I leave my bags at the desk. I hit the streets. The city springs to life. Young, good-looking women not only smoke, but they also handle their cigarettes like alluring props. Equally good-looking men linger too long with their glances. They receive withering glances back. No social stigmas seem attached to the smokes or the looks. Hopeful, hustling yuppies in finance and marketing bounce obliviously past the homeless still blanketed against the previous night's crisp air. The intricate, often spectacular, graffiti is still present. It reveals itself on the walls of construction and under bridges. It defiantly reminds the inhabitants of the Jardins that wealth has not tamed these blocks quite just yet. The police know it. Their omnipresence reminds pedestrians that while the crime rate is not Rio's it is still nothing to take lightly. The smells of Sao Paulo range from the wretch-inducing to the seductively sublime. The worst kind of waste gives way to the aroma of brewing coffee mingling with fresh pastries. Cafe culture remains strong. Individual houses of coffee have not been overrun by Starbucks in perpetuity. I settle into one and begin jotting the notes for many of the observations you now read. Â
I know I am somewhere I have been before. But where?
I check into my modest but comfortable room. I refine my initial notes and catch a quick nap. Brad is arriving later from Santiago, so I am meeting him for dinner at the restaurant D.O.M, and then we're off to the Santana Bar for drinks.
The walk to the restaurant resolves the mystery that has nagged at me since arriving in Sao Paulo.
At sunset, I head down the steep city street of Rue Haddock Lobo. The lights come on all at once. The weather is the promise of the end of winter. It is 62 degrees. The skies are clear. Retail shops remain open. Restaurants are seating. Managers, hosts, and maitre d's stand expectant. Their restaurants and shops fill up with patrons. Some don Eagles' caps, others wear Packers' jerseys. However, it is locals, the Paulistas, who populate the majority of counters and tables. All look pleased that they can afford the best the city has to offer. The police presence is now heavier. It is reassuring but not friendly. It knows the city isn't as safe as it could be. There is no chit-chat. A knowing nod will have to suffice.
A day's worth of experiences roils in my head as I turn the corner. Just as I reach for the restaurant's doors, it hits me. I put it all together. I know where I am. I was in an old city, covered in graffiti, and slowly recovering from a violent and economically turbulent past. But it suddenly seemed full of can-do people, young either in age or spirit. These people seemed bursting with pride in simply being there, surviving there. Thriving there. It was like they knew they were living in a wonderful secret that was about to leak out. A dangerous city, but on the make, on the move, and full of potential. And, for a brief moment, it's about to become the football capital of the world.
It was New York of 1986 to 1993.
Yes, that New York. "How'm I doin'?" New York. "The Secret of My Success" New York. "Bonfire of the Vanities"Â New York. "Licensed to Ill" New York.Â
The precarious promise of Dinkins is just arriving and not given way to the law and order of Guiliani. It is a city that has just shaken off its crime-ridden, near-bankruptcy past. It is transforming into something driven by a younger, more hip zeitgeist. It feels like the place to be again. Real estate investments and business start-ups are flowing back into Manhattan. The underground movements of punk, new wave, and hip-hop have percolated to the cultural surface. Even the fabulous invalid of Broadway has begun to turn its lights on by going back to the future. It feels like a place you go to make it. It feels like a place where you go to become your best self.Â
It feels like New York again.
That includes the sports scene. The action at The U.S. Open in Flushing Meadows alone would be enough to place New York in the center of the competitive world. It offers a life-affirming service break to the stuffy decorum of Wimbledon. It boasts rowdy crowds looking to be seen as much as seen. Those crowds pick favorites and make no apologies for it. That decision to choose heroes and villains would never be clearer than the summer of '91 when the legendary Jimmy Connors played what he believed to be the best 11 days of tennis in his life. Watch the old pro work the crowd in his match against Paul Haarhuis.
How many in that crowd do you think believed that they saw themselves in every hard-won point?Â
While the Eighties were the only decade not to raise a banner in the Bronx, baseball glory can be found in Queens. In winning the '86 World Series, the Mets created the diamond equivalent of a nouveau riche, somewhat coked-up, overnight Wall Street success. "The Kid" was alright, "The Doc" was in, the crew was as tough as "Nails," and it was Strawberry season. First in batting. First in pitching. Four starters with 15 wins or more, and none of the rotation with an ERA over 4.00. No miracle necessary. But an error from Buckner certainly helped.
But the real sports story of both that year and that comeback decade took place in New Jersey. That tale was picking up steam over in The Meadowlands right as the Mets were putting the finishing touches on the Red Sox. Â
I am referring to Bill Parcells' championship New York Giants. The same night the Mets took the series, the Giants were chalking up the first victory of what would become an 11-game winning streak. They defeated the formidable Washington Redskins and would never look back.
That gang from Gotham boasted one of the greatest defenses in NFL history, and The Big Blue Wrecking Crew was complemented by an offense that played with a massive chip on its shoulder. The squad was led by the last defensive player to win the league MVP, Lawrence Taylor, and had eight All-Pros across its roster. They mangled their way to a 14-2 regular season and started January of the next year with a 39-20 shellacking of John Elway's Broncos in Super Bowl XXI.
Rather than doing a thick description of that team's character, I'll let tight end and John Rambo impersonator Mark Bavaro demonstrate it. Here's how he ignited a comeback against perennial contender the 49ers.Â
His team's back against the wall, Bavaro puts himself right in the middle of the field, goes looking for a scrum, and literally carries his team to victory. If there is a character direct from central casting for "Noo Yawk," it's Mark Bavaro. That catch is Mark Bavaro. He is the '86 Giants. Those Giants are '86 New York City. They all become one.
That's what great teams do. They become the communities for whom they play. Like the '81 49ers or '00 Ravens, they morph into a reflection of the cities that cheer them on, and on even rarer occasions, as it was with the '86 Giants and the '09 Saints, they transform the communities to become more like them. I think that's why spectator football is so important to us. It allows us to become part of a winning community. A community where individual excellence is celebrated, but only if it contributes to the win. When teams like that win on Sunday, they send their entire city into the work week with a dramatic renewal of purpose. For fans of those '86 Giants, a Monday morning subway commute must've seemed like a chauffeured limousine ride.
Speaking of rides, those were the thoughts I was working through on Friday as we approached the stadium. With minibikes playing between bumper-to-bumper traffic, I played between memories of football both played and watched long ago.
My earliest recollections came at the outset of the Eighties. I remember my godfather incredulously repeating, "How do you lose by one point?" at the conclusion of the 1981 NFC Championship made famous by "The Catch."Â
It was the "Catholics vs. Convicts" game that lifted my spirits on the day we buried my best friend from high school after his tragic death in an automobile accident.Â
And almost twenty years later, I would watch New Orleans Saints special teamer Steve Gleason snap an entire city back to life with a blocked punt against Atlanta. Â
There is so much more I could write about. As kids, we played neutral ground, neighborhood football against Harry Connick Jr. In my twenties, we flocked to my Uncle Tic's house every Saturday for an afternoon of games. It would become known as "Stadium Club," and it was a tradition my father would take over when Tic passed. Eventually, my emotional investments in the outcome of games would lessen and be replaced by my love of football as a waypoint in strengthening bonds of both family and friendships.Â
It also provides a great excuse to travel across the country and even, on occasion, across the equator.
That is where I find myself when I step out of the cab and towards the stadium. These thoughts have finally come into focus.Â
It is there, in foreign lands, I can see football again as if it were the first time. In stadiums full of crowds just learning the intricacies of the game, I can return to a world where football means everything.
By the time the Eagles kickoff to the Packers, it once again does. Therefore, it always did.