What’s more patriotic than the 4th of July? The Super Bowl. Each year, Americans across the nation gather to eat chicken wings and celebrate the single sporting event that’s more important than the Olympics.
This year the Baltimore Ravens beat the San Francisco 49ers in a close 34-31 game. Who knows what happened in the Harbaugh household afterwards. But no one can deny that the game was a great one with the Ravens solid defense in the first half and the 49ers impressive comeback in the second half.
It’s also the single sporting event that brings out everyone’s inner commentator, and turns Facebook and Twitter into a vat of criticism and statuses like, “I was always a Ravens fan anyway,” “Status about the Super Bowl,” or who could forget the infamous, “I hate football and America.”
It’s ok, everyone hates you too.
However this year it seems that the majority of the tweets and statuses were centered around Beyoncé’s halftime show, which in my personal opinion, was the best part of the Super Bowl.
I also have a theory that all those lights used during the halftime show blew the fuse that blacked out the entire stadium, at which point the players switched jerseys, which is the real reasons the 49ers had a turnaround. But that’s just me.
It seems as if the Super Bowl is beyond any regular football game though. Friends and family come together to eat and enjoy the game and laugh at all the celebrity-endorsed commercials. Which truly emphasizes the sense of devotedness and support this nation has towards its teams.
But don’t be fooled by the togetherness of this event, for it can also rip friendships into pieces when heated arguments spark over fumbles and whose chip dip tastes better. Unless you’re at my house, in which case we just throw on our Blackhawks jerseys and cheer every time someone else does because no one really knows how the game works.
Perhaps the most patriotic part of the Super Bowl is the opening ceremony. This year, Sandy Hook elementary chorus performed with Jennifer Hudson in memory of the victims of the shooting. During the National Anthem, the soldiers stationed at Camp Courage in Kabul, Afghansisan were shown on the screen saluting our flag.
The Super Bowl is a time of laughter and good times, but what it most defines is our country’s patriotism and dedication to our nation. And amongst all the tweets, arguments, commercials and blackouts, the Super Bowl seems to find a way to brings us together.