Chad the Elder unflinchingly stands by the colors:
Cheering for a team is not about calculating the odds and going with the winners. It’s about loyalty and eternal hope in the face of constant disappointment.
People occasionally ask me how I can persevere so stoically in the face of constant scorn, derision, mockery and ridicule. They marvel at my ability to shrug off the most scathing attacks with little more than a sardonic smile, and they wonder how I remain so blithely unmoved by criticism, dislike and hate.
I find it hard to understand the question. I am a Vikings fan. There is nothing you can throw at me that could make me feel any worse than I have felt before. I sobbed in 1974. I raged with burning fury in 1975. I cried in 1976. I felt sick in 1987. By 1998, there was nothing left inside but a frozen hollow. In 2000 and 2003, I barely blinked. That which did not break me has made me stronger and harder than you can possibly imagine.
We are cold and bleak, we men of the North. We are made of sorrow, snow and stone.
We are all Bud Grant.