Sunday night as I watched Denver Bronco quarterback Peyton Manning set the National Football League record for career touchdown passes I also took a trip down memory lane.
As long as I can remember I’ve been a Manning fan. While I was growing up I was a fan of Peyton’s dad, Archie. Some of my earliest memories of college football are of Archie playing for the Ole Miss Rebels. I then followed Archie as he tried to elevate a bad New Orleans Saints team to respectability.
Most of the fall Sunday afternoons of my teen years were spent watching Archie and the Saints with my dad as we cheered on our lovable losers. Dad, who would have been 82 next Tuesday, and I bonded over Archie and the Saints.
Peyton Manning, the senior
Peyton was born March 24, 1976 – a little less than two months before my 18th birthday and a little more than two months before I graduated from high school.
I didn’t know much about Peyton until his senior year in high school, when he was one of the most highly recruited football players in the country. As a University of Tennessee fan and, at the time, still a future UT graduate, I was happy to see him choose the school that had always been so close to my heart.
I cheered Peyton’s wins for the Vols and felt dejected the few times success didn’t follow him and the team. Peyton’s junior year, in the fall of 1996, Dad and I shared an afternoon in Neyland Stadium cheering him and the Volunteers to victory over the University of Southern Mississippi.
Peyton Manning is now older than I was that November afternoon when he led Tennessee to a win over the Golden Eagles. His legacy in football is secure and there is no doubt he will one day be enshrined in both the College Football Hall of Fame and The Pro Football Hall of Fame.
More than a fan
I would like to think that I don’t live and die by how Peyton Manning does in any given game. Yes, I pull for him and the team he quarterbacks, but I’ve reached the point in life where I quickly put bad plays and bad games that someone else has behind me.
And yet I feel a connection to Peyton Manning that goes beyond that of just a fan. Maybe it goes back to those years in the 1970s when I pulled for Archie and the Saints, but I think it much more than that.
Peyton’s mother was raised in Mississippi, as was my mother. Although separated by a generation and considerable talent, Peyton and I both played high school football in the Gulf Coast region.
Finally, not only did we graduate from the University of Tennessee, both Peyton and I majored in speech communication.
Yes, I’m a Manning fan, and that includes Peyton’s younger brother Eli, who quarterbacks the New York Giants.
My memories of the Mannings and the times I shared with my dad watching them play have, at least in a small way, forever enriched my life.
Email News Bulletin Sports Editor Randy Dickson, follow him on Twitter or call 850-682-6524.
This article originally appeared on Crestview News Bulletin: SIDELINE OBSERVATIONS: Cheering on the Mannings