Tale of a Vikings Fan

Here is Aaron Pew with this week’s guest blog, the life of a Vikings fan.  Enjoy!

Tale of a Vikings Fan

by Aaron Pew

I am a father, a husband, a manager.  All of these things define me as a person, but the one constant my entire life that has defined me is my love of a certain football team in Minnesota.  You’ve read in the past about how my father influenced me in many ways, but making me a Vikings fan might be the biggest one.

When I say it’s been a big influence, I may as well say that it’s been a curse.  To date, it feels like I was duped into a credit card with a zero percent introductory offer.  It was great at first, and I was able to get some of the nice things I wanted, but once that introductory rate was over, I felt a sick feeling at the bottom of my stomach.

Now some may read this and think they can one-up me.  I’ve only been a Vikings fan since the early 90’s.  There are some out there that have endured 50 plus years of agony.  These fans have watched four powerhouse teams fail in the Super Bowl.  They have watched the invention of the Hail Mary.  (Damn you Staubach!)

They have seen Jim Marshall running the wrong way and who can forget the Hershel Walker trade?

I became a fan of the Vikings during Denny Green’s tenure and life was good.  I loved watching, because it was a good chance they would win every time I watched a game.  I never fully understood it then, but I was already being sucked into the monster.  Dennis Green never had a full losing season as a Vikings coach (he was let go before his only losing season could end), but his legacy was that he had never won a playoff game.

At the time, I was able to easily make excuses.  They lost to the power houses of the NFC each year, and they were typically close.  Just bad luck, I would say.  I long for those days of innocence.

This brings us to the year I drank the purple Kool-Aid.  1998.  Now, if you are still reading this, you likely aren’t a Vikings fan, as most Vikings fans just quit reading this by now.  I will continue to explain for the rest of you, for those who can’t here’s a gif of the heartbreak.

In the spring of 1998, I watched the draft for the first time.  I remember that our family was catering a wedding.  Boy did I want them to draft somebody on defense.  They already had a good offense with weapons like Cris Carter, Jake Reed, Robert Smith, and they were usually an assisted living residence for former great quarterbacks.  Then the pick came in…Randy Moss, WR Marshall.

I couldn’t believe it.  Why in the hell would the Vikings draft a receiver?!  They already have one of the best of all time!

This marked the first time I was upset with my beloved team.  I soon forgot, as my dad and I spent the summer tracking home runs and not worrying about the Vikings.  When the Vikings played their first preseason game, however, I could see that it all made sense.  Moss was a freak.  He was a shiny new toy.  For a Vikings fan, he looked like the second coming of Jesus Christ himself.  My eyes were glued to the TV screen.  For my entire time as a fan, the Vikings had always been playoff contenders.  They were suddenly Super Bowl favorites.  Hook.  Line.  Sinker.

I was in to the team that year to help take my mind off of life, as it was the year I lost my dad and my oldest brother.  The Vikings sure took advantage of my attention.  They broke scoring records.  Beat the Packers in Lambeau on Monday Night Football!  15 and 1.  15 wins. Only 1 loss.  Going into the playoffs, some were saying the Vikings would choke.  I didn’t listen.  Haters gon’ hate, right?  There was little doubt after they destroyed Jake the Snake and Arizona.

The only thing left between my favorite team and the Super Bowl? The Atlanta Falcons.  We already went over this, but we all know that the NFL points leader turned into Ray Finkle that day.  I now understood what those “Viking fans” were talking about.  They choked.

As was the tradition that entire year, I would watch the game and my friend, T.J.’s, house.  When the Vikings would score, I would shake the foundation by jumping and screaming.  When something went wrong, I screamed words no 13 year old should ever know.  This day was different.  There was so much at stake.  It was more about business and less about entertainment, then the field goal happened.  I cried.  I am honestly telling you that I cried after that kick.

That was when I earned my horns.  I had talked so much shit that year.  I didn’t want to go to school the next day.  I knew what was waiting for me.  Shame.  Embarrassment.  Vikings Fandom.  In 1998, I turned into the stereotypical Vikings fan.  The moment Randy Moss torched the Packers on Monday Night Football, it was a given that the Vikings would win the Super Bowl.  Every week they continued to win further cemented the fact.  I was quick to tell everybody so the disappointment of the Championship Game loss hurt even more.

Now there’s a saying out there that says, “Once you go Purple, you never go back”…err something like that.  I was an even bigger fan after 1998, as I was now determined to prove to everybody that my team could do it.

I endured the Giants beat down.  I survived ” The Love Boat”.  I stayed faithful through the Randy Ratio and all of Mike Tice’s damn pencils.

I loved Vikings Brett Favre until he was Brett Favre again.  I even did my best job to defend Christian Ponder.

But rather than diving into those in detail, let’s take a look at what makes a Vikings fan the way we are, shall we?

Let’s start by stating that the Vikings have never won a Super Bowl.  The Vikings were possibly the most dominating team of the 1970s.  Yes, even more-so than the daunted Pittsburgh Steelers.  The difference? Clutch performances.  The Vikings have continued the history of the 1970’s and are the perennial team that gives hope, but fails to pull through in the end.

It has been well documented that the Vikings are the winningest franchise to never win a Super Bowl.  We are Phil Mickelson.  What’s that?  Mickelson won a major?  He’s actually won numerous majors now?  Shit.

Now we are Dustin Johnson.  Great.  Seriously, the Vikings have been to the playoffs 27 times which is tied for 4^th all time.  The three teams ahead of them?  NY Giants, Dallas Cowboys, Green Bay Packers.  They are tied with the Pittsburgh Steelers.  Those 4 teams have won 18 Championships.  Also of note, the 49ers have been to the playoffs less than the Vikings and have won 5 titles.

To point that out, this man’s playoff beard is going on 50 years now.

The second reason Viking fans are the way we are, is because we seem to be the younger brother of the Packers and Bears.  The Packers and the Bears have tradition.  They have history.  A lot of elder Viking fans used to be Packer fans before 1961.  The Packers win the division pretty much every year and it drives us crazy.  The Bears have been good once since 1940.  This also apparently makes them a better franchise.  This also infuriates Viking fans.

We, as Viking fans, are like play things for Bears or Packer fans.  I used it as an analogy, but it is literally like two older brothers just teaming up and pushing all the buttons that they know will set their youngest brother into fits of rage. So, here we are, the youngest brother, just waiting for the day that we are bigger, stronger, and have less osteoporosis.  This will be the day we get back on them for all those years of torture.

This, is why we keep coming back for more, and also why everyone thinks the Vikings fans are band wagoners.  Sure, there are band wagon Viking fans, but there are those with every franchise.  I think it comes out with the Vikings because they are successful more often than franchises like the Browns, Bears, Jaguars, etc.  But ask yourself, would it make a lot of sense for a Vikings fan to be star spangled purple when the team is 5-11 or a pedestrian 8-8? No.  If the average fan talked a lot of smack when the team is not doing particularly well, Packer fans or Bear fans would have us for lunch.

So, most of us sit back quietly until we have something to brag about.  Of course, when your favorite franchise has never won the big one, there isn’t a lot of history to lay our hat on, so any success turns into a big deal.  It’s kind of like when a teenager gets to 3^rd base.  They have never made it home, so they have nothing but excitement for their near victory.

If a married fellow made out with his wife, he would enjoy it, for sure, but it wouldn’t dominate his discussion.  They have been there before.

So, here we sit, a franchise of fans that are damned if we do, damned if we don’t.  The Vikings are this year’s sexy pick to take the next step.  It started with a somehow positive 7-9 season last year, in which this team seems to have found their coach and quarterback that has been long missing.

Suddenly, following free agency and the draft, the Vikings were playoff contenders.  Now, (gulp) they are even being written down as Super Bowl contenders in national media stories.

As Vikings fans, though, we know what to expect.  The cart is being put in front of the horse right now and we are fighting with ourselves to stay out of the hype.  We want to take a swan dive and roll around in the hype, but we know we shouldn’t.  It never ends well.  We all acknowledge that this team will be a lot of fun to watch, but at the same time, we know that it is destined to fail.  Just like a dad that works 80 hours a week and promises his son a game of catch when he gets home, only to make it home from work after bedtime.

We also know that we will be put down because of our skepticism because Viking fans are always martyrs, we’re always pessimists.  We know that if we put ourselves into the midst of this hype, we will be mocked because we are so naive.  Jokes about our past will surely come up.  And finally, if we stay on the hype train and it ends in any sort of loss, we will be made fun of for believing in a franchise that always lets us down.

So, until we finally see our favorite football team win the big one, we will be suspended in this revolving door of torture.  Hope.  Disappointment.  So I speak for Viking fans everywhere when I say, just give us one!  Please!