A banner night

TALES FROM THE TAILGATE
Pats 30, Steelers 14 (9/9/'02): I won't be going to the home opener today at Gillette. I haven't missed a homer opener in the nearly 25 years I've been a season-ticket holder for the Patriots. But a late-summer Cape vacation with Devra (and a baby to be named later) calls. And calls loudly.

The opener is always one of the best tailgates of the year. The weather is almost always perfect (see: today). Friends who haven't seen each other since last winter get together and share stories of work, politics, family ... OK, we mostly just talk football and food. Oh, the food. Today's menu (I'm told) features burgers from Noacks in Connecticut that Matt brings up with him from his ESPN job. If you haven't tasted the smoked meats from Noacks you've been missing out. But I digress ... the homer opener is something you look forward to from the moment the schedule comes out in late spring. Many of the home openers are high on the list of great days (or nights) in Foxborough.

But one home opener stands out among the rest. September 9th, 2002. A day I never imagined would come. The Pats were raising a Super Bowl championship banner.

The joy from the moment when Vinatieri's kick went through the uprights in New Orleans was still with everyone as we gathered in the lot in front of our brand new stadium! A Super Bowl title and a new stadium! Were we in Pittsburgh? Dallas? San Francisco? No. We were in New England. After nearly 30 years of rooting for a team sure to break your heart, I was getting ready to watch my team raise a banner as the best in the NFL. In a brand new stadium. It was surreal. And we were like kids on Christmas Eve.

It was 80 degrees with a light breeze on a Monday night in September. The Pats were re-matched against the Steelers, the team that they had upset on the road in the AFC title game to advance to the Super Bowl. Everyone remembers "The Snow Bowl" against the Raiders and, of course, the Super Bowl. The game in between often gets overlooked. The Pats walked into Steel Town and punched them in the face to take the AFC championship. The Steelers still think they were the better team and deserved to win. Of course after Spygate broke players such as Hines Ward said things like "Hey, I knew they were cheating! Where are our championship rings?" On the fingers of the Pats, right where they belong. Spygate or not, the Pats beat the Steelers because of Troy Brown's special teams play (which you don't need illegal videos for) and Steeler QB Kordell Stewart's not-so-special play. Simple as that.

Bitter Steeler players were quoted before the season-opening rematch as saying "There's nothing like knocking off the champs." The champs? That's right. We are the champs!

The parking lot was like Mardi Gras. Fans shot off fireworks. Music blasted. People danced. The food was better and the drink was sweeter. We were the champs. We arrived inside Gillette Stadium and made our way to our new seats... in Section 109 at the 45-yard line. It was official: me, Paul, Bergs, and Shep had died and gone to football heaven. The new stadium was impressive. And this was before KraftWorld, a.k.a. Patriot Place, came to be. There was a big ceremony planned with former players introduced and a highlight film of the team's Super Bowl run on the big screen. Nick Carter sang the National Anthem (OK, not everything was magical). One of the loudest cheers came for the announcement that the new stadium was built with private money and without PSLs, the dreaded personal seat licenses. If I ever meet Bob Kraft in person I know just what to say. "Thanks for not charging me thousands of dollars for the right to pay you thousands of dollars to buy my tickets." He could have gouged the fans (of which he was a long-suffering one) and he didn't. A class act that should never be forgotten no matter how many young starlets he dates.

The players were introduced as one, just like the Super Bowl. Then the lights went out and Mr. Kraft started "You've been waiting 40 years for this" and the roar got louder. U2's "Beautiful Day" played, just like in the Super Bowl, and a spotlight hit the south end zone where the championship banner was unveiled. It was like New Year's in Times Square. Hugging. Cheering. Laughing. Kissing.

The energy from the ceremony carried over to the game. The Steelers scored to tie the game 7-7 in the first quarter and then the Patriots steamrolled them. Scoring the next 23 points. In the second quarter hero Vinatieri walked out to kick a field goal a recieved a long, raucous standing-O. The kick gave the Pats a 10-7 lead and they poured it on from there. Brady and the offense had almost 350 yards for the game and Kordell Stewart reprised his role of mistake-prone QB by throwing three picks. Final score 30-14.

At one point during a TV timeout in the fourth quarter -- with the crowd in full celebration mode -- Queen's "We Are the Champions" blasted out over the new stadium's speakers. The crowd began to sing along ... "Weeee are the cham-pions, my friend. And weeeee'll keep on fighting ..." It was almost a Patriotic moment. Then-President Bush would have gotten teary. A group of Americans singing as one about winning. The crowd continued to sing louder and louder and then, as the commercial break ended and the players lined up for the next play. the music, as it always does, stopped. But the crowd did not. "Weeee are the cham-pions. Weeeeee are the cham-pions ..." 60,000 plus singing a cappella till the final line. "Weeee are the cham-pions! ... of the woooooorld!"

That night we were.