Root, root root for the underdog

Somebody pinch me.\nIs it real? Did this actually happen? The answer to both of those questions is quite possibly the most depressing “yes” of my life.\nI sat in my room, staring at the ceiling, wondering how in the world my beloved Patriots could lose 17-14 to the Giants in the Super Bowl. \nNo title for Randy Moss. No Super Bowl parade through the streets of Boston. No perfect season.\nInstead, the Patriots lost to Eli “Bleeping” Manning.\nIt took awhile to find the words to describe how excruciating this loss is. While most Hoosiers on campus rejoiced, knowing the team they viewed as evil choked on the world’s biggest stage, I felt sick — an indescribable emptiness. It’s not that we lost — it’s how New England’s run at a perfect season was ruined. After the game ended, I had to take a long walk to sort out everything that transpired. In the end, it still didn’t make sense.\nThroughout the year, the Pats blew out opponent after opponent, all the while deflecting accusations of Spygate and running up the score. These guys didn’t care. They were on a mission. That mission failed.\nEven Mr. Cool, the unflappable Tom Brady, couldn’t orchestrate a last-minute comeback. Instead, he watched Manning — a quarterback known more for his brother than his playoff heroics — lead the Giants on an 83-yard drive, capped by a Plaxico Burress touchdown.\nAnd for two years in a row, a Manning was named the Super Bowl MVP.\nWhen you experience a loss like this, you try to reach out to anyone and everyone who will help console you. Colts fans can relate — it’s the same thing they suffered through before Peyton clutched the Lombardi Trophy. Only that consolation isn’t there. Everywhere you turn it’s all the same. For the next week, ESPN will replay highlights, debate how the Giants won and force the entire New England area to ignore SportsCenter.\nThanks to the writers’ strike, there goes 95 percent of my regular programming.\nWhile I listen to the most depressing songs on my iPod (“Sunday, Bloody Sunday,” “Ain’t no Sunshine,” and “You Can’t Always Get What You Want” come to mind), my Giant-loving fraternity brothers are rocking out to “Celebration” and “We Are The Champions.”\nBut as hard as it may for Patriots fans to accept the loss, you have to feel some sort of happiness for New York and its fans.\nOnly let me state for the record that never in my life did I envision typing the previous line.\nLike everyone says, we love the underdog. It’s the foundation America was built on. Unless the opposing team is your rival, how could you not take pleasure out of an upset? How could you not feel good when the 1969 New York Jets (17-point underdogs) roughed up Johnny Unitas and the Colts? Or when the 2001 Pats knocked off the “Greatest Show on Turf?” What about the “Miracle on Ice” at Lake Placid in the 1980 Olympics?\nOf course I’m hurt. I’m in pain. It’s like the Beatles broke up all over again (Except now I’m alive.) But as the cliche goes, there is always next year and maybe 365 days from now, Mercury Morris and Don Shula will be throwing bottles of champagne across the room instead of getting sloshed off the bubbly. \nUntil then, I’ll just have to regroup and wait for August, knowing that so many key guys on this team will be gone. One of the greatest teams assembled, all but a memory.\nAll I have to say is kudos to the Giants — America’s underdog. It’s what we all love to see.\nAnd what I hated to watch.