Getting up on the curmudgeonly side of the bed, Patrick Reusse explains why he does not understand the modern Viking fan with an optimistic viewpoint:
The age for sincere emotional involvement with a sports team is 12. Anyone whining over the result of a game before that is a crybaby destined to grow up with few friends.
Which means, if you were 12 on Jan. 11, 1970, the last cheery moment you had about the eventual fate of the Vikings came before that afternoon’s kickoff of the fourth-ever Super Bowl.
Minnesotans as a whole were never more certain of anything than that the Vikings’ magnificent defense would stifle the Kansas City Chiefs and provide a pro football championship in only the third season of Bud Grant’s coaching tenure.
The final was Kansas City 23, Vikings 7. A couple of months later, NFL Films released a highlight tape from the game, complete with Chiefs coach Hank Stram cackling and ridiculing the Vikings throughout his team’s decisive upset.
It was a wound that never healed for Vikings fans that were at least 12 that day, and are now 54, older, or dead.
