Super Comments at the Super Bowl...

Let me be the first to extend my deepest sympathy to all of you Bears' fans on the defeat of your team in the Super Bowl on Sunday night. I don't know how it feels to lose the Super Bowl since my team has never been there, but I do know how it feels to lose to YOUR team in the NFC Championship game and I know it stinks. At this point the solace you take is in saying to yourself, "Well, at least we made it to the Super Bowl" but I know that doesn't really help that much.

While I was pulling for the Bears to win for many at CBC and another friend of mine outside the CBC body who is a big Bears fan, I must admit that I was not torn up over the loss and I didn't mind seeing the Colts win the Super Bowl. I heard all the trash talk that "Colts" stood for "Can Only Lose The Superbowl" even though Super Bowl is two words and "Colts" doesn't end with a "B". I mean with that thinking, "Bears" must stand for "Bad, Especially At Raining Superbowls". In the end, the game was really not that exciting overall and the play of the Bears team as a whole was pretty bad (not just Rex Grossman).

But I must say that what I really appreciated most about the Colts win was the focus of their Owner and Head Coach after the game. During one of the greatest moments of their lives when all the attention was on them and they could have said how great their team was and they were, the first thing Colts owner Jim Irsay did was focus on those who had lost their lives and homes in the storms that hit just north of Orlando, FL on Thursday and then give glory to God for the Super Bowl win. Irsay is a professing Christian, and so is his head coach Tony Dungy who made mulitple mentions of the Lord. And when asked about being the first African American head coach to win a Super Bowl, Dungy said this,

“I’m proud to be the first African-American coach to win this, but again, more than anything, Lovie Smith and I are not only African-Americans but also Christian coaches, showing you can do it the Lord’s way. We’re more proud of that.”

I am certainly not saying that the reason the Colts won the Super Bowl was because their owner was a Christian and their head coach was a Christian. And of course I am sure that there are people on their team who are not Christians and people on the Bears team who are Christians (Lovie Smith according to Dungy). But what I am saying is that I appreciated the focus of these men. In an entertainment and sports world where we hear so much about all the "me" focus of high paid entertainers and athletes, it is nice to see something different. In his post game press conference, Dungy even mentioned that this isn't the biggest thing in the world - referring to winning a Super Bowl. He recognized that winning a football game was not the most important thing.

So, as much as I was pulling for the Bears to win, I must say thanks to Irsay and Dungy for focusing first where we all should be focusing first. Thanks for giving the glory to God when you could have taken the glory yourself. And thanks for being a role model in a world that seriously needs them.

So bears fans, I'm sorry...but I hope you stay tuned long enough to hear the comments of these men after the game. For a more complete story on Jim Irsay's faith you can go to http://www.bpnews.net/bpnews.asp?ID=24865 . To read more on Tony Dungy's focus you can go to http://www.chattanoogan.com/articles/article_63714.asp . Also on Dungy's faith, you can read the first part of this article - http://www.juiceenewsdaily.com/index.php/2005/12/30/tony-dungy-faith-in-christ-will-get-me-through/ .

And by the way Bears fans...there is always next year - for the Saints too!