Counting the Days While My Mind Slips Away by Ben Utecht & Mark Tabb

Author:Ben Utecht & Mark Tabb
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Howard Books

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I. Colossians 3:23 (NIV).

CHAPTER 14

NOT THE SAME

THE TEMPERATURE IN INDIANAPOLIS HOVERED around minus 2 degrees when our team plane landed the day after our Super Bowl win. You wouldn’t have known it from the reception we received. The city held a victory parade downtown, with huge crowds all around. All of us on the team rode on floats that did a short loop downtown, then headed into the RCA Dome, where another huge crowd waited for us. The place was electric. It felt like a game day. No one wanted the party to end.

And it didn’t end, not really, at least not until the next season started. Everywhere Karyn and I went in the city for the next several months, people came over to congratulate me on the huge win. I don’t think we paid for any meals in restaurants the entire off-season. It felt like we didn’t just win the title for the team, but for the entire state of Indiana. For me that feeling even extended back to the Twin Cities. When Karyn and I went back home to Minnesota I was greeted like a hometown hero. I sang the national anthem for several Minneapolis teams, including the National Hockey League’s Minnesota Wild, who gave me a jersey with my name on the back. That meant a lot to me, because my grandfather Bob Utecht was the longtime public address announcer for the Minnesota North Stars before the team moved to Dallas. Because of the family connection, singing for the Wild and receiving the jersey were two of the biggest honors I was given after becoming a Super Bowl champion.

Six weeks before the start of training camp, the team came together at the Indiana Roof Ballroom to receive our championship rings. Jim Irsay, the team owner, created an incredible event. The night felt like a Cirque du Soleil show. Literally. The room was filled with music, with dancers, and acrobats hanging from ropes from the ceiling. The Lombardi Trophy was front and center, stealing the show. The comic Sinbad made an appearance. A gospel choir came out and sang an incredible song about it being a time to praise the Lord. When the ring was presented to me, it came in a dark wooden box. I opened it to find what players play for their entire careers. In the center of the white gold ring was a blue horseshoe made of synthetic blue sapphires surrounded by more than fifty diamonds—fifty-seven, to be exact. “Faith” was engraved on one side of the ring, the only time that has been done on any team’s championship ring. Including that word was a nod to Coach Dungy’s leadership as well as, in Mr. Irsay’s words, the faith that “gives you the strength to have the perseverance to move forward even after many disappointments.” On the opposite were the words “Our Time,” over a small horseshoe. On the players’ rings on one of the horseshoe rivets there was a small red ruby that symbolized a drop of blood that came from us leaving it all on the field.

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