LionsFanRoc’s 2nd-Prize Writing Contest Entry

Here is the 2nd-prize winning entry for the AXE Hair/TLIW Writing Contest, written by LionsFanRoc!

I won’t pretend that I’ve had to suffer more than other Lions fans, we all know what one another has been through: draft jokes about wide receivers, constant razzing from friends who are lucky enough to follow winning teams, reading moronic comments from every a$#hole with a computer, etc.

What I can tell you is that I’ve been a Lions fan as long as I can remember, living in upstate New York. When the Buffalo Bills were winning four straight AFC championships from 1990-1994, I was watching (whenever the Lions played nationally televised games) Barry Sanders, once a backup to the Bills Hall of Famer running back Thurman Thomas, try to single handedly win games for the Lions. Needless to say, despite being only 20 years old, Barry Sanders was all I’d ever had to be proud of as a Lions fan.

That is until September 27, 2009 when the Lions played the underachieving Washington Redskins.

I had waited all week for the game, wrote an article on Bleacherreport.com about what I predicted the outcome would be (a Lions win of course!), and had set up a way to watch the game streaming live with two friends of mine who were Redskins fans (both of whom are actually very attractive girls… as if I needed any more of a reason to watch!).

I walked over to their dorm 30 minutes before the game to get situated to find that my only seat would be on the floor, but I didn’t mind. It was the first time I would get to watch a game in its entirety and not on a site like justin.tv which would surely be shut down mid-game.

For an entire three hours I endured their taunts of “How can we be losing to the Lions?!”, or “God how bad are we this year?” without shoving one right back in their face. After all, they’re attractive girls and chivalry isn’t totally dead with this 20 year old. I remained polite throughout and simply decided that it was best not to test karma or get my hopes up despite being up 19-7 with only five minutes left.

Of course, my fears were confirmed with a Redskins touchdown with two and a half minutes remaining making the score 19-14. The Lions couldn’t possibly blow this game, could they?

With eight seconds left on the Lions 36 yard line the Redskins had time for one last play and I couldn’t keep my body still. The long time out right before hand sure wasn’t helping to ease the tension, I mean who knows what could happen? They could get a pass interference call in the end zone and have a play from the one yard line (something the Lions benefited from later on in 2009!).

Finally the play came. The Redskins were in trips right at the top of my screen and had another receiver at the bottom of the screen. Surely he was just a decoy; Campbell was throwing a jump ball to the right in the end zone hoping for those yellow flags.

To my surprise it was a trick play: the hook and ladder, and a poorly executed one at that. Larry Foote finally sent me into a state of jubilation I had not felt in a long time.

I proceeded to make an ass of myself, running out of the room and down the hall screaming. In my celebration I actually ran towards the wrong end of the hallway and a dead end at a locked student lounge that had been converted into a triple dorm room. It didn’t matter to me as I ran right back past the room I had exited and on to the elevator, realizing at the last second as the doors began to close that I had never thanked the girls. The exchange was awkward to say the least after my euphoric outburst, but they understood.

I received many texts, facebook posts, e-mails and even a few telephone calls of congratulations that day, but nothing was better than walking back to my own dorm room where my roommate was waiting with a handshake.

Why you ask? Because finally someone who jeered me every single week had to give my team credit… he’s a Packers fan.

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