A Super Memory of Things Left Unsaid

Jim Daugherty and his son at the Super Bowl of their lives

It’s never just a game.

If sports were just games, quarterbacks would make teachers’ wages and teachers would drive Italian sports cars. The world would be a saner place, but not a more passionate one.

We can debate whether the Bengals should be playing Sunday. What’s above that noise is the quiet smile of a memory. Maybe for you, it was 1982 or 1989 or last season. The Bengals were atop the mountain on Super Bowl Sunday, leaning into that final step. You’d be along, to plant the flag.

For me, that was 1984.

It was the only Super Bowl I’d ever attend as a fan. Redskins-Raiders, Jan. 23, 1984, at the old Sombrero in Tampa. Jim Daugherty had bought us tickets.

My dad was a converted Eagles fan who moved from Philly to DC to become an adult. He completed that evolution by buying Washington Redskins season tickets in the mid-60s. The Redskins were occasionally competitive but never good. They had Sonny Jurgensen and Charley Taylor. They also had a defense that ran away from the bulls of Pamplona.

Results often didn’t matter. DC was a huge Redskins town. The baseball team was bad and soon enough would move to Texas. The NBA team was still up the road in Baltimore. The ‘Skins were it. Mondays after losses were undeclared days of mourning, flags from Bowie to Bethesda flying at virtual half-staff.

We’d earned our celebrating.

It’s funny what we remember about the days of our lives. Between 1966 and 1975, I went to every Redskins home game with my dad. Today, I couldn’t tell you many details of any of them. I could write chapters about the soft-sided, 6-pack cooler Jim toted to games. I can picture the irony in his wearing electric socks in December, while drinking deathly cold Valley Forge beers. (Now you know: My affection for cheap adult sodas was inherited.)

I remember the hugs, more to console than to celebrate.

The games were our thing. They translated well into our language of two. We could do battle on any number of other fields — the length of my hair, the tartness of my mouth, a perceived haughtiness I’d of course inherited from the other side of the family — but we could always find peace, love and understanding in dialogue about John Riggins. If our love had a safe zone, it was in Section 526 high above the south end zone at RFK Stadium.

You know what I mean. Of course you do.

My folks moved from the DC ‘burbs to Bradenton in ‘82, my dad bought a Bucs season ticket and experienced mid-60s Redskins flashbacks. We’d talk after most Redskins games. Which gets us to the passenger seat of my dad’s car, tooling an hour up I-75 from Bradenton to Tampa. Redskins-Raiders, Super Bowl XVIII.

You can get a lot of things talked about in the cocoon of an automobile motoring up an interstate. Or so I’ve heard. My dad and I were feeble at putting our deepest selves out there for mutual inspection and would be until the day he died. It could have been that saying nothing was easier than dealing with the air-clearing fallout and the scars that would come from saying something. Cat Stevens sang, “From the moment I could talk, I was ordered to listen.’’ It could have been that.

It could have been that my dad originated in the seen-not-heard generation of kids, or that he himself grew up without a dad to mentor him. My grandfather left home when my dad was 7. Left a note on the table. Maybe it was all of that, some of that or none. I guess we’ll never know.

I’d like to say the occasion of Super XVIII was different, some ground-breaking breakthrough of spoken understanding born because of the magic of the day. But it wasn’t.

The cliche is, never left anything unsaid to those you love.

If only.

We had the games, though. We always had those.

The Raiders won the Super Bowl, 38-9. Some dude named Jack Squirek intercepted an ill-advised Joe Theismann screen pass with 12 seconds left in the first half, then pick-sixed it to give LA a 21-3 halftime lead. Jim Daugherty and I shared a couple F-bombs.

The ride back was vague. I could have said, “Even though we lost, it was great that we could be together to see it.’’ Instead I said, “I can’t believe Joey T. threw that pass.’’

My dad said, “Yeah.’’

At their best, sports are heirlooms. Teams are passed from one generation to the next, no different from a million-dollar inheritance or an ancient jar — an owl, wearing glasses and a baseball cap — mom religiously filled with chocolate chip cookies.

We do with those heirlooms what we can, owing to who we are and the experiences that define us.

And we try to be grateful for our games, our teams and our memories, and the adhesive all that stuff gave to our lives. Even when we can’t articulate it.