Why Do We Do This to Ourselves?

I was at the double doink, a football event so infamous it has its own Wikipedia page. That moment stuck with me, sat on my fucking chest, for a week. Skunk-like, a stench that lingered. I let myself have hope, I let myself believe. And I was rewarded with a football paralysis demon. What a fool. What a dope. I lost sleep over that experience for days.

Who lets a football kick do that to them?

I was what I thought I was.

A loser. A Bears fan.

Sports is irrational. You have no influence on the outcome. You can tell yourself you’re watching because you love incredible athletics—but it’s a lie. The team you root for was likely pre-determined by the region you grew up in. Like family, you have no say in the matter. Plenty of people are born into families they’d happily trade in for another. Sports is the same way. Ongoing devotion to a family, or a sports team, is often a mixture of faith and ironic detachment.  

I do not remember when I started caring about the Bears, which is different than when I started watching the Bears, or being around the Bears. I was around the Bears young, due to my father’s career in sports equipment. I pulled up field goal nets before they outlawed it for strangers. I was smuggled into the Bears locker rooms inside empty laundry baskets. I have been, in some for another, watching the Bears my whole life. I hosted a party at my college apartment for their Super Bowl appearance in 2006. As a kid, I’d hang out with my dad while the games were on the TV. I’m sure I cheered when they scored. I think. Probably. But I can’t remember. 

But when did I start to care?

There was no single moment, but there was a person: my wife. She was, from the moment I met her, a diehard. Even funnier, she was, like me, born in Wisconsin—born in Packers territory!—and converted. She made that choice when she was older. My birth in Wisconsin was a quirk of circumstance; my mom and dad were Illinois people. It was never a question what team we were invested in.

Every week, my wife wanted to watch the Bears. My dad watched the games, but he didn’t lose his mind the way she did. He wasn’t doing shots during touchdowns the way she was. He wasn’t ditching me for a bar down the street on a Sunday to watch the game.

She loved the Bears and I loved her. But to better understand her, I came to realize over time that I had to understand the Bears.

I downloaded podcasts. Started playing fantasy football.

Understanding became caring.

Caring creates belief. Belief makes shared ties of fate and emotion around a single desire: for the Chicago Bears to defy history, to defy expectation, to defy science. For the Chicago Bears to win.

My friend and I have a tradition with our youngest daughters where, when the Bears score a touchdown, we pick them up and swing them around. It always cracks me up when they wander over and ask “Why haven’t we been swing around today?” The answer is simple, of course: today, like most days, the Bears suck. Those same Chicago goddamn Bears especially sucked in the first half of their trilogy of matchups against the Green Bay Packers this season, punctuated by these two sweet young girls walking down the stairs when they realized the Bears had scored a field goal. Points! It’s time to be picked up and swung around by the Dads!