Fan Essays: It's Time To Hear Your Stories

thanks for the selection Ed!

Looking forward to picking up my copy!

its a shame that some people forget the game is all about (or should be all about) the fans

By the time I saw the thread it was already closed and I could not post there. This afternoon I saw this and decided to write my story which is unique. I will post here now and may even have to post it in installments since I got emotional and made it lengthy and even after deleting many things it still is over 2 pages in MS Word

How I Became A Giants Fan

I was 21 years old when I came to USA in 1981. My port of entry was New York City metropolitan area but after a few days I flew to my destination Dallas. I lived in Dallas for 17 years until 1998 before I moved to Phoenix Arizona where I have lived for 12 years now.

Now, it is interesting that after I started living in Dallas I chose all the Dallas area sports teams as my teams except for football. This is how it all began. My first job was working in a restaurant and since I have Pakistani background many Mexicans at work or outside of work confused my darker looks for being one of them and always wanted to start a conversation in Spanish with me. I got tired of all that and kept telling people look I am from South Asia and had to pass an English test as a visa requirement.

One of my coworkers who was from NYC told me to just start telling people that I flew to Dallas from NYC area and people will just start assuming I was an East coast Italian etc. This sounded good and I figured out a way to word it all in a way that I was not lying since I did fly from there to Dallas.

Now came 1982 and by now I had noticed that people had been glued to TVs watching this sports game the ball of which looked like a rugby ball. In high school in Pakistan I was a good cricket, field hockey and soccer player and was somewhat ok in rugby.

Then one day there was this excitement at the restaurant and people were all going to this one table where a tall guy was sitting with his broken arm in a plaster. People told me that he was Too Tall Jones. For the first time I realized that all over town people had been walking around everyday with a blue star on their clothes that this guy had on his cap. I was told that he was a player from something called Americas Team a.k.a Dallas Cowboys.

Well, now I was curious of American Football. I looked in the sports section and found the NFL related pages. (To tell you the truth from what I know now those were NOT NFL pages but simply Dallas Cowboys pages. There were barely any stories about other teams with some scores etc). All of a sudden I saw the division and conference lists. There I saw Dallas Cowboys in the list. A friend of mine explained the divisions and conferences etc.

Now it was time for me to pick a team. I looked at the Cowboys division and saw New York Giants. Now this was interesting. Local team was called ‘boys and the NY team was called Giants. When I was a kid I used to enjoy reading stories about genies and giants etc. I was fascinated by this name. Since I had ‘come to Dallas on a plane from NY area’ I thought I should pick this team as my NFL team. Now when I look back I think that it had always been my destiny to be a NYG fan.

I did not pay a lot of attention to 1982 season and simply followed a few games. I followed all the games in 1983 (and have since then) and by the time 1984 came around I had pretty much figured out the basics of the game and some of its rules etc and more I learned about this ‘American football’ more it grew on me. Of course I followed all the games in 1985 as well and then something magically great happened in 1986.

I remember calling in sick to watch the first playoff game that 1986 post season. This was a whole different job by now and believe me I was the manager of a place and overlooked the minor detail of a playoff game and scheduled myself to work that day. I had to arrange with one of my assistants to work for me the entire rest of the playoff season the days the Giants were going to play.

Well we did win the superbowl that year. I was so happy. I remember many plays from the 86 season (and 85) like they happened yesterday. All my roommates and friends were Cowboys fans and just did not understand me. How could I live in Dallas and abandon Americas Team and be proud of LT and Simms.

Now it was time for me to study the history of the NYG. This was before Internet and the local newspapers were no help at all. So I had to rely on libraries to dig up the history. I had been amazed how football had grown on me but I had no idea that it was not completed yet. More I learned about my team, Giants more proud I became of its rich history and heritage. Now it was turn of the New York Football Giants to grow on me.

Whoa, there was this sneakers game… then there was that Greatest Game Ever Played… all those championship years. Could you believe that Vince Lombardy ran our offence while Tom Landry was his counterpart on the defense for us on the same team at the same time? Are you kidding me? Those guys contributed to our legacy. Then there was this Mel Hein. Oh how about Gifford. Then that picture of our bloody faced QB from the past sitting on the ground after a championship game that he completed and won after he broke several bones in his body during that game. If I start listing my heroes from my past Giants teams I can go on for several pages. There is so much to talk about what happened at the Polo Grounds, Yankee Stadium, Yale Bowl, Shea Stadium and that wonderful place that used to be called the Giants Stadium. Hey the actual football the NFL players play with is called Duke. It is named after Wellington (Duke) Mara. We invented the spike in NFL. There are many things that we started in NFL.

The strike season after 1986 season upset me because I was looking forward to a repeat. Even in those trying times one of my heroes stepped up and crossed the picket line. Thank you LT. We all know that Lawrence Taylor is the one and only LT and all others are simply wanna be monickers.

Then came 1990 of course. There is not enough room here to cover the 1990 season or the 1986 for that matter. By the way I have been married since 1989 to this nice lady from Dallas who is a Cowboys fan and all her family are Cowboys fans. Her and me never have had any problems because of our rival teams and have watched or followed our 2 games a year together for 20 years. Anyway, then came the miserable years of the mid 1990s when the local team won 3 superbowl and I had to put up with that team with the blue star which by now had become a very ugly blue star, while my Giants were looking for a QB. Then came the 2000 season when the great defense of Ravens got in our way otherwise we had a decent team there. Then came 2007, which is going to be a whole different article. That superbowl was played 31 miles from my house. I still have not mentioned Bavaro, Megget or Seahorn and many others yet. I still have to acknowledge Eli and great years Tiki gave us. So many deserve mention such as Strahan and Armstead. Oh yeah how about a Rodney Hampton. Thank you Toomer. I have Manning to Tyre play on my laptop and watch it at least once a week. When Giants fans come to my store, I play it for them too and we watch it together. They tell me they are Giants fan because I have something Giants on me such as a shirt or a cap. I can go on and on but the article is about how I became a Giants fan. The reason that I am a Giants fan is because I am one of the lucky ones. It was my destiny to become a Giants fan. The very first name I created on Internet was bb1156, which stands for Big Blue 11 (Simms) 56 (LT).

I had started to have feelings of grandeur that I know all about Giants and then suddenly Ed Valentine showed me how to become humble and started his Giants By The Numbers Thread and now I am a back again learning new things about our magnificent team.

By the time we celebrate our first hundred years in 2025 our Giants are going to be the team with the most league championship wins. Yes we will leave behind the Packers. Sky is the limit what we will do in our next century between 2025 and 2125. We will have so many people who will be part of our Giants legacy and become NFL legends and those guys are not even born yet. Trust me it is for a reason this team does not have cheerleaders. We men and women and children who are Giants fans are all the cheerleaders this team requires.

To the current and future Giants fans and players I would like to say that keep your chins up and be proud of the legacy that you are a part of.

 Remember that you heard it from this poet first that: Being a Giants fan or player is not a label it is a calling!

Ok good i was able to send it in one post. My idea is to simply share it with other fans and I am not worried about not being able to have published in a magazine. I wanted to post it in the original post but by the time I got there the comments were closed.