Life on the Sinking Pirate Ship (Walking the Plank with The Buccaneers)

Do you like football? Me too. I was a baseball guy when I was very young (New York Mets!), but made the transition to full-time football fanatic in the 8th grade.

The first step in becoming a football fan is to choose a team to root for. I live in New York, so naturally most of my school chums at the time were fans of the New York Giants, New York Jets, or Buffalo Bills.

Then there were those damn Cowboys fans. I don't understand how they had infiltrated our state, but there sure were a lot of them. I guess it’s easy to root for a winner. After all, The Cowboys were “America's Team”.

I could have taken the easy route and chosen to root for a team that actually won games. Instead, I decided to be a rebel and follow a team that no one in their right mind would root for: The Tampa Bay Buccaneers.

I remember the day I made that fateful decision. I opened a newspaper mid-season and looked for the team with the worst record. I didn't have to look far. The Buccaneers were 2-8 and were generally one of the worst teams in the league year after year. They wore jerseys that were the color of orange cream sickles and their mascot was a rather dainty looking pirate named “Bruce”.

Yep, this was gonna be my team.

It started out as a joke. My friends would mock my sad devotion to this horrible franchise. I didn’t mind. I love rooting for an underdog. When I got my first job my boss would always have a good laugh at my expense. He'd introduce me to his friends and say, "This guy’s a Buccaneer fan. Ever see one of them before?"

Yes, I suppose I was a rare creature in the northeast. It was sort of like seeing a Sasquatch, or at the very least a Florida alligator rolling around in a snow bank.

Before the Internet came along, my only resource for Buccaneers news came from the newspaper and ESPN. I'd watch the highlights of their games and see a team constantly getting outclassed. They lost so much that I didn't even mind, really. The constant losses only served to make those rare victories all the more pleasing.

Then something strange happened: The Buccaneers started to show signs of improvement. It all started when they were given cool new uniforms of red and pewter. On their helmets, an ominous skull insignia replaced that nonthreatening smiling swashbuckler “Bruce the Pirate”.

The team opened their 1997 season going 5-0. I finally had something to crow about. I'd go into work and start making crazy predictions to entertain my boss and co-workers. I’d tell them the Bucs were going to go 16-0, and quarterback Trent Dilfer would break every single season record before the year was through (I think the only record he ended up breaking was in interceptions).

Well, sure enough the Bucs hit a skid and they didn't go undefeated that season after all. But they did reach the playoffs, and that alone was an exciting change of pace.

The Bucs continued to be a pretty good team for the next few seasons, with some real superstars emerging like Mike Alstott, Warren Sapp, Warrick Dunn, Derrick Brooks and Ronde Barber. It was an exciting time to be a Buccaneer fan. Everything finally seemed to be falling into place.

And then, following a glorious 2002 regular season, the Buccaneers reached their pinnacle: Superbowl XXXVII. They beat the Raiders 48-21. After the game I receive a phone call from my old boss congratulating me. After years of loyalty, I finally got to see the Bucs bring home a championship.

In the years since the Superbowl things have been going steadily downhill. The players I admired so much were traded away or retired. The win/loss records got less and less worth mentioning.  By 2009, the Bucs were pretty much starting from scratch with a whole new team of young rookies. They started the year losing seven (7) straight games and ended the season with only 3 wins.

It looks like we've gone from feast to famine. This year the team is playing especially poorly, currently in the midst of a six game losing streak. But losing is nothing new for Buccaneers fans. It's going to be a long climb back to the top for this young Bucs team, but I shall remain loyal and root for them each Sunday regardless of how badly they stink (and boy do they stink this year!).