Rootin' for the Saints

I am going to be watching the Super Bowl with a couple of friends in a bar in Pasadena. I've watched the Super Bowl with these friends for the last few years. They're pretty clueless about football, but they like watching the Super Bowl. It's a little odd being the sports expert in the crowd, but it's a good feeling.

I am, along with probably 90% of America, rooting for the Saints. Partially because of Reggie Bush, who is a famous USC grad. But also, of course, for the underdog factor. Bill Plaschke of the LA Times explained this country's desperate need for a Cinderella story:

As our country lurches and heaves through the ankle-deep sand of its economic recovery, it has not helped the national psyche that every time we turn to our national pastimes for assurances that the little guy can still survive, we run smack into Goliath.

The New York Yankees won the World Series. Gee, that was fun. The Lakers won the NBA championship. Loved here, hated everywhere else.

North Carolina won the Final Four. Bear Bryant's old team won the Bowl Championship Series. Jimmie Johnson won his fourth consecutive NASCAR championship. The Connecticut women's basketball team has won 61 consecutive games.

And now Peyton Manning is getting ready to win another Super Bowl?

No thanks. Not now. Please. America needs to believe in the impossible again. America needs another dose of revival.

As a Yankees and Lakers fan, I was thrilled with both of those victories, although my otherwise great sports year was tempered by the dismal failure of USC's football team this year (they went 9-4, which was very sad). But I understand his point.

Of course, the greatest Cinderella story in America right now is playing out in the White House, but I suppose as soon he was inaugurated, Obama stopped being the underdog. Of course, the whole point of the Cinderella story is that she is the one who marries the handsome prince.