There were ten of us there holding hands.
It was a moment of intense introspection. I had been let down so many times before. There had been countless heartbreaks. Fumbles on the 1-yard line. Interceptions. Wild pitches. Untimely errors. Bill Buckner. And that damn Bambino.
I almost didn’t dare to believe we might actually win. That for once, something good might happen to a New England sports team in my lifetime.
But as my friends and I looked on while clutching each other’s hands Adam Vinatieri’s field goal was good and suddenly we (the Patriots) were world champions.
As soon as my best friend told me about the victory parade in Boston I was in.
I immediately cancelled two meetings, called out of my work-study job, blew off a class and bought a Troy Brown shirt. We heard the parade was going to start in downtown Boston at noon and end outside city hall where there’d be a short rally.
That morning we were on the highway by 8 a.m. We hooked up with a couple friends at a rest stop and we were off. I had to keep reminding myself that we had really won the Superbowl.
We decided to park outside the city and take the T downtown. We heard they were expecting over a million people and the streets would be almost impassible. I thought we were outsmarting everybody until we got to the T station and saw a line stretching a couple hundred feet out the door.
We were in Everett, Mass. It was around 10 a.m. and there were maybe 2,000 of us Patriot fans waiting for the train. There were old people, teenagers skipping school, little kids who didn’t know what was going on. A bunch of them were drunk, others just giddy. We were going to see the World Champion New England Patriots.
When we got to the platform I knew we wouldn’t fit on the first train. It looked full before the doors opened and hundreds of fans tried to pack in. We almost didn’t make it on the next train. But we did and we were three stops from our destination. We stopped at Community College and just laughed at the few people who wanted to get on. I’ve never been on a train that full.
We got out at about 10:30 and walked into a sea of crazed Patriots’ fans. It was like another world. Already, three and a half hours before the team would be there, the streets were packed. People were on roofs. In parking garage windows. In trees. On signs, fences, trash cans. It was nuts.
In the distance, we could see hundreds of thousands of people surrounding the stage where the Patriots would end the parade. Getting a good view of the action didn’t look promising.
We made our way through a security checkpoint towards the stage and walked as far as we could until we hit the wall of people. It was maybe 10:45. I was a few hundred yards away from the place where Tom Brady would soon hold the Lombardi Trophy. We were standing in the shadows of the huge buildings all around us and it was probably 15 degrees – 5 with the wind chill.
We didn’t say much at first. It was overwhelming just being there. Everybody was excited. There were a couple “Yankees Suck” chants that didn’t last very long. We were all just looking for a reason to freak out. I kept having to remind myself we won the Superbowl.
There were helicopters everywhere. We counted eight at one point. I don’t know how many were for security and how many were the media, but it was a little uncomfortable at times. My friend Big Al kept getting freaked out by the helicopters.
Everybody in my little area was definitely aware of the potential for a terrorist attack. There was nothing we could do about it so we made jokes. “If you see a crop duster run,” somebody said. It shouldn’t have been funny but it was. We didn’t care. We won the Superbowl.
The people on the rooftops provided some entertainment while we waited. A couple guys stood on a chimney and mooned everybody. Then one of them got completely naked.
We cheered. Somebody else broke down the little tree he was perched in. We gave him the “asshole” chant.
After a couple hours of waiting we were getting a little cold and restless. Somebody in back of us had a radio and we heard the parade was moving very slowly. They didn’t think it was going to get to us until 2 p.m.
We groaned and I thought about the large Dunkin’ Donuts coffee I drank before we got on the train. I was pretty sure I couldn’t make it another two hours, but there was nothing I could do. I was packed shoulder to shoulder with more than a million crazy Patriots fans. If I left to find a bathroom I’d never get back to the view we had of the stage. I tried not to think about it.
The view I had wasn’t much to be grateful for. If I stood flat-footed and faced the stage I could see the back of the big guy’s neck in front of me. If I stood on my tip toes and angled my head six inches to the left I could see the top of the stage. It didn’t look good.
After a while the helicopters all moved almost directly over us and we could see the people on the buildings start to point. We knew it was them.
We screamed. So did everybody else. Tall people around me started to point to our left. A guy in back of me got on his buddy’s shoulders and gave us a play by play. First it was the cheerleaders, he said. Then he said he could see somebody holding the trophy. The real trophy. Then he saw Lawyer Milloy. Ty Law. Bill Belliceck. And finally, the golden boy, Tom Brady.
They were all on the stage now. People in back of us were yelling at the guy on his buddy’s shoulders to get down. I was straining to see through the crowd of people in front of me. I listened intently as different team members talked about being the champions. They yelled and we yelled right back. They cheered and so did we. Special Team’s captain Larry Izzo even started a “Yankees Suck” chant.
It was all I ever wanted and I couldn’t see a thing.
I heard little Troy Brown getting his teammates to dance on stage. “Lemme get a couple 300-pounders out there,” he said laughing.
It didn’t last long. Maybe 20 minutes. We stood around for a few minutes trying to take in the victory that was all around us. It didn’t matter that I couldn’t see anything or that it was freezing or that my bladder was about to explode – we were world champions for the first time ever.
We walked back towards the train with thousands of other fans. We were still screaming.