There we were, gathered in my brother’s basement, as we do every football postseason to watch our beloved Vikings find a way to rip our hearts out. And with 10 seconds to go, I took my usual position, with my fingers over my eyes so I could barely see the mammoth 2,000-inch TV that takes up most of the room.
And then it happened.
Like something right out of the movie Freaky Friday (or Like Father Like Son, depending on your generation), suddenly the adults became children and the children became the adults. As the Vikings pulled off the improbable with a last second 60-yard touchdown, fully grown men and women began hugging, jumping, clapping and yelling at the TV as if somehow the players could hear us. Meanwhile the children stood by; some bewildered, some confused and some downright afraid – note my momentarily unsupervised one-and-a-half-year-old daughter in yellow pants entering the room at the :09 second mark of this video. It was pandemonium and for a moment, there was raw and pure emotion.
That’s silly, right? It’s just sports, after all. And if that’s your perspective, I’d like to tell you about what happened next. In the 20 hours since the miracle, I’ve seen a community joy that I haven’t seen in a long time. On my drive home after the game, it was ten degrees and snowing, but that didn’t stop a group of grown men from waiving Vikings flags on the highway overpass, wearing nothing but jeans and purple t-shirts. And even though it was white-knuckle driving, I was sure to honk my brains out in response. A few miles later, there was an impromptu amateur firework show lighting up the snowy skies. That’s illegal in the state Minnesota and I hope everyone has all of their fingers intact – we are Vikings fans, after all. Not Giants players. What? Too soon?
The point being, there was a postgame euphoria that the entire community got wrapped up in. And even now, almost a full day later, there’s still a glow. There’s something that this moment unleashed in this community: a shared happiness.
Perfect strangers who may look/act/vote different suddenly have a common ground in the shared colors of their clothing. Coworkers today are telling stories of what they were doing when the moment happened, conversations at the grocery store have a bit more peppiness and even my garbage man gave me a friendly wave I’ve never seen before. in general, people are just in a better mood.
So don’t tell me it’s just sports. I’m not naive enough to think that this feeling will last forever. If fact, next week I’ll be in the same position, partially obstructing my view of the game with my fingers. And maybe, just like that, it will be the end of the ride. But this town, this state and this community will always have at least a little bit of the glow of the Minneapolis Miracle.
Jack Stahlmann is a corporate speaker and Huffington Post contributor.