Why I bother with my favorite New York teams

After watching my Jets come up short again this past Sunday, I realized something: This was the best year I’d ever seen them have. Sure, they had a better regular season back in 1998-1999, and a better all-around football team—but Jets fans don’t look back on that experience too favorably. Following a decent first half against the Denver Broncos in the 1999 AFC Championship Game, the Jets melted down during the final two quarters and saw the chance to play a weak Atlanta Falcons team in Super Bowl XXXIII slip away. The free fall didn’t end there.

Anxious Jets fans filled the Meadowlands for the 1999-2000 season opener, ready to see the preseason AFC favorites begin their quest to end a 30-year Super Bowl drought. Instead, they saw star quarterback, Vinny Testaverde, suffer a season-ending Achilles tear while cutting on the old AstroTurf carpet, effectively ending any hopes of another postseason push.

The 1999 AFC Championship loss was at the center of a miserable chain of events which led to a decade of mediocrity, and it really ruined the whole season for me. The playing by this year’s Jets could not have had a more opposite effect. The team is young, and has improved dramatically as the season has progressed. The return of Leon Washington—new contract pending—and Kris Jenkins from injury will make the team better on both sides of the ball before they even make their first offseason move.

I feel better about this season than any of the others before it, a depressing thought that has driven me to ask myself, once again, why I still root for so many losers. The world is a dangerous place for someone who supports the Jets, Mets, Rangers, and Knicks, and sometimes I still wish the historical circumstances that led to my support of these sorry franchises could have been different.

Here’s the abbreviated story:
In 1969, my father’s family immigrated to this country and settled in Newark, N.J. My father, already an avid soccer player and fan, was immediately fascinated by the variety and spectacle found in American sports, and quickly sought to pick favorites. That year, the New York Mets won the World Series, the New York Jets won the Super Bowl, the New York Knickerbockers won the NBA Championship, and the New York Rangers were the only team playing professional hockey in the area. As a result, this wonderful grouping of Gotham franchises earned the undying loyalty of my father, who hasn’t looked back since.

But I often wonder why. In the decades since 1969, these four teams have just three championships combined, and only one of them has been during my lifetime.

Years later, during his senior season in high school, my father was lured to Columbia by legendary soccer coach John Rennie. Within three years, Rennie had moved on to Duke, my father had moved on from soccer, and my future as a sports fan was doomed. The Mets, Jets, Knicks, Rangers, and Columbia Lions would become staples of my childhood, and the good times have been few and far between ever since.

In 1994, I, then five years old, remember jumping for joy while celebrating the Rangers’ Stanley Cup win. I was definitely happy, but when I look back, it’s clear that I had no idea what I was seeing, or that I would never see it again.

Fourteen years later, I celebrated Columbia’s Ivy League baseball championship in my Carman suite in a similar fashion. This time, however, I was very aware of the significance of the moment. It was the first slice of championship success for any of my father’s hand-me-down teams since that fuzzy memory in 1994, and I was not going to let an excuse to celebrate slip away.
Not all aspects of my sporting experience have been so terrible, though. I was always more successful in winning championships as a player than most of my pro-athlete role models in New York, experiences that were far more satisfying than merely rooting for a team.

I also had enough sense to pick a couple of my own favorite teams. In 1995, I watched Danny Wuerffel and the high-flying Florida Gators whip in-state rival Florida State in Gainesville and I was an instant believer. The following season, the Gators would go on to capture the school’s first national championship, ensuring a lifetime of dedicated support from yours truly.

Interestingly, a video game led me to my other self-selected favorite team. On Christmas Eve in 2000, I received my first edition of “FIFA” for PlayStation 2 and was introduced to the wonders of European soccer for the first time. I quickly became a fan of the real thing, and I picked Inter Milan as my team, in part because of my grandfather’s wishes and in part because of hulking star forward Christian Vieri, who I began to mimic on the soccer field.

Either way, my decision to follow the Florida Gators and Inter Milan was a stroke of genius. The two have combined for six championships in the past four years, making them twice as successful as the Mets, Jets, Knicks, and Rangers together since 1969.

But I do not blame my father for passing on the misery. I only search for ways to cope with the losses, and that usually begins with feigning enthusiasm for next year. Perhaps that’s the reason why I’m not upset about the Jets’ season-ending loss to the Colts on Sunday. For the first time as a Jets fan, I am truly confident that the future is bright.

And if I’m wrong, I can always fall back on the Gators.