I kid you not! One of my very first memories in life was the Drew Pearson pushoff on Nate Wright for the original Hail Mary play by Dallas in the 75 NFC Championship game. Of course I did not appreciate the magnitude of that game or that it was a foreshadowing of 46 years of brutal Minnesota sports to come. But the fact that a play that actually coined a new sports phrase for something that had NEVER been seen before that just happened to occur against a team that I would become a fan of is the perfect introduction to my life as a Minnesota sports fan.
Watching on my families tiny Black and White TV in the living room, the memory sticks out for two reasons:
- My father and mother's epic, blathering, incoherent melt down in the middle of the living room floor. The first, but not last, time I had seen my parents react this way to anything sports related (they were both hard core Vikings fans).
- The ref that got plugged by a whiskey bottle and the bandage they wrapped around his head.
This memory stuck with me but it was not until several years later that I realized that this game was the legendary Hail Mary game. The first full season I remember following completely was the 76 season where the Vikes got drilled by the Raiders in the Super Bowl. Sammy White getting decapitated still burns my memory. My destiny was set in stone at that point as a soon to be life-long suffering Minnesota sports fan.
But yeah, this Gophers season is absolutely in the top 20 of most dissapointing in Minny sports for me.