For One Day, I was the Manning

COMMENTARY | Unlike many other sports fans, I don’t wear player jerseys often.

In fact, the white road jersey with Super Bowl XLII logos on each sleeve and the home blue version, each with quarterback Eli Manning’s surname on the back, are the only two I own.

One reason for my very selective jersey inventory results from the objectivity a part-time sportswriter and broadcaster must maintain. Another is that we sometimes never truly know what type of person an athlete is outside of the competitive realm.

That’s not to say that while covering a variety of sports and conducting hundreds of interviews with dozens of various players over several years, I haven’t met my share of seemingly stand-up competitors.

Yet, while our society tends to over-glorify those with terrific athletic ability, the true heroes in life are normally our parents, closest friends, teachers, well… you get the idea. Perhaps those are those ones whose names we should truly wear on our backs.

So, why do I choose to wear Manning’s jerseys?

Admittedly, the primary motive is no different than what you’d usually expect. I’ve been a big New York Giants fan since the late 1970’s, when I was as a young kid, just before Manning was born, three days into 1981. And, Manning has developed into my favorite Giants player, so why not wear his jersey at a special time like this, when my favorite football team just won an unexpected NFL title?

Still, it takes more than that for me to adorn a player’s jersey, and Manning fits the bill as a player who’s very easy to root for.

The two-time Super Bowl Most Valuable Player is one player with whom I’ve come into contact, who was ridiculed early in his career, rode through that criticism to achieve great success, and by all accounts, has done so by doing everything in the right way, whether on or off the field during his first eight years in the National Football League.

Even after leading the Giants to a pair of Super Bowl titles in the past five seasons, Manning appears as humble and as professional now as the December day I interviewed him in front of his locker at Giants Stadium following a Giants practice in 2006, during the portion of Manning’s earlier career when the Giants’ current star was struggling and still trying to figure out how to become the eventual elite NFL quarterback he is today.

And then, I suppose there’s one final intention behind my Manning jersey-wearing that most fans can’t claim with an athlete they might support with officially licensed team apparel.

Although it depends on the moment, the angle, and sometimes on the picture, I am apparently according to others, somewhat of a Manning look-alike (something I’ve heard before, from family and friends) – especially when I’m holding a pseudo-Vince Lombardi trophy that has an enchanting effect on the city which Manning’s team represents.

Such was the case last Tuesday afternoon, the day New York City honored the Giants with a parade down the famed Canyon of Heroes, as I attended the event wearing my blue Manning jersey while proudly wielding a replica of the Super Bowl trophy, made from an empty football-shaped pretzel container, wrapped tightly in aluminum foil.

As I soon discovered, there’s a certain magic to that trophy, even if it’s a fake replica of the real thing.

Repeatedly, throughout a sun-drenched and unseasonably mild February morning and afternoon in Manhattan, I was greeted with warm smiles and fists happily raised in the air from fellow Giants’ fans as they responded to my hoisting of the phony championship symbol.

Giants’ supporters ate it up, cheering for the tin foil prize whether I walked from the Chambers Street subway station toward City Hall; at the parade; in several other locations around downtown Manhattan; and, even later, on the Brooklyn Bridge.

Dozens of times, Giants fans enthusiastically pointed and yelled, “He’s got the Super Bowl trophy!”

Others asked to pose for pictures with it and some even emulated Manning, his teammates and coaches, and Giants’ president, CEO, and co-owner John Mara, by gladly smooching the mock trophy.

After the parade, as I made my way through Manhattan’s streets, I was stopped on the street by a few fans who wanted to take some pictures alongside “Eli and the trophy,” as they said.

“He looks like Eli!” one fan eagerly pronounced of me. He told me, “Oh man, you should have been here earlier! We could have made so much money!” At which point, the fan tried unsuccessfully to start an impromptu street business.

“Hey, wanna take a picture with Eli?!” he asked random passersby. To others, he shouted, “Get your picture with Eli! Right here! Ten bucks! Look, it’s Eli!”

After having received no takers on the offers, but sharing a few good laughs, my party and I stopped for lunch in a nearby Chinese restaurant on Fulton Street, named Goodies.

Even there, the owners of the establishment placed the trophy by the cash register and took pictures to post online.

Later, the trophy was taken for a run along the Brooklyn Bridge, where it was cheered by several other Giants’ fans, two of whom said to each other about me, “He does look just like Eli!” before they took turns taking pictures while each kissed the trophy.

Earlier, with late afternoon traffic building up on the bridge, I led cheers for Giants’ fans stuck in their cars. Again, I raised the trophy high above my head, and chanted, “Let’s Go Giants!” along with the New York City drivers, who in between the chants, beeped their horns.

Super Bowl championship fever wasn’t limited only to Giants fans that day.

A female French tourist on the bridge, who didn’t appear to be fan of American football, let alone a fan of the Giants, also wanted to be photographed with the trophy.

Finally, the simulated Super Bowl prize was brought to the most fitting place possible, at least in terms of the actual trophy’s name.

Where else, but America’s first pizza place, the famous Lombardi’s, in Little Italy, on the corner of Spring and Mott streets, where the pizzeria’s staff played along, telling Eli’s stand-in, “Congratulations on your victory.”

It wasn’t exactly like riding a float down Broadway or standing on the podium at Lucas Oil Stadium in Indianapolis, with confetti raining down.

But, for one day, I had a lot of fun knowing how it feels to be the Manning.

Scroll through above, to view pictures.

Source: All photos owned by Jonathan Wagner.


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