My allegiance to the New York Giants was practically predestined. Before I could walk, my father had me beside him on the couch, cheering for his beloved team. One of my earliest memories is the 1962 NFL Championship Game between the Giants and the Packers. It was a frigid day, and the game was blacked out within a 50-mile radius of Yankee Stadium. Undeterred, my father hauled a ladder onto our icy New Jersey roof, adjusting the antenna toward Philadelphia so we could catch the game. His efforts paid off, and we managed to discern the action on the snowy screen. It was during the early 1960s that I embarked on a lifelong journey as a New York Giants fan.

In 1963, the Giants reached the NFL Championship Game, and up to that point, I knew nothing but championship appearances. Little did I realize that after the 1963 season, it would be eighteen years before the Giants returned to such heights. As a lifelong fan, certain Giants games have been intertwined with pivotal events in American history. I was in fifth grade when an educator entered our classroom, whispered to another teacher, and without explanation, school was dismissed for the day. On the playground, we learned that President John F. Kennedy had been assassinated. Walking home, I struggled to comprehend this monumental event. Back then, we held tickets to Giants games at the original Yankee Stadium. That Sunday, the Giants were scheduled to play the St. Louis Cardinals, and I recall anxiously waiting all day Saturday to see if the game would be canceled. NFL Commissioner Pete Rozelle decided the game would proceed. Two memories from that Sunday stand out: the Giants lost 24-17, and during the game, someone with a transistor radio shouted that Lee Harvey Oswald had been shot and killed.

The years from 1964 to 1977 coincided with my adolescence and early adulthood—the absolute worst years for my favorite team to falter. There was the relentless teasing from neighborhood kids who supported the Packers, Cowboys, and Steelers. Monday mornings at school and later at work were inevitable gauntlets, enduring jabs from colleagues. But mostly, there was that sickening feeling every Sunday night after another loss, the weekend culminating with the ticking of the "60 Minutes" stopwatch, which sounded to me like a countdown to an execution. To this day, I still get a vaguely uneasy feeling when I hear that ticking.

Fast forward to November 1978, and to what any Giants fan will tell you was the nadir of Giants fandom. Known simply as "The Fumble," it occurred on November 19, 1978, and I was one of those unfortunate souls at that game. Three weeks prior, my wallet was stolen, and to give one an idea of how poorly the Giants were performing in those days, the week leading up to the game, my wallet was returned in the mail, minus all my cash and driver's license. One thing, however, remained in that wallet—the ticket to the Giants and Eagles game. As most Giants fans can recall, the Giants had the ball, and all quarterback Joe Pisarcik had to do was take a knee to run out the clock. As we were leaving to beat the crowd, certain of a rare Giants victory, we heard a collective groan from the stadium. Turning back just in time, we saw Pisarcik mishandle a handoff to Larry Csonka; the ball was scooped up by Herman Edwards, who ran it untouched 26 yards into the end zone, forever altering the course of Giants history. When the dust settled, one of the worst stretches in Giants history had reached its climax. From the ashes of that tragedy, the long drought would end, as it was that game that prompted intervention by Pete Rozelle, who mediated a dispute within the Mara family, leading to George Young becoming the New York Giants general manager. Young eventually hired Ray Perkins and then drafted an unknown quarterback from Morehead State named Phil Simms, and things began to look up.

But it was a Jersey guy, Bill Parcells, who took the Giants to the promised land. Parcells was a Jersey man to his core, and those of us who grew up in New Jersey relished every soundbite and interview. Parcells was media gold; his interactions at the local Upper Saddle River deli, where he stopped for coffee each morning, were covered on the evening news. He was one of us, so when he led the Giants to the pinnacle of pro football dominance in 1987, a lifelong dream was realized on that sun-soaked field in Pasadena, California. Parcells followed this up with a second Super Bowl victory in 1990—a game altered by the nation's first glimpse into what was to come, as fans attending the game were treated as security threats, planes flying overhead, and regular news updates interrupting the broadcast of the game.

As the new millennium arrived, the Giants reached their third Super Bowl, and Giants fans experienced the disappointment of being on the losing end of a Super Bowl for the first and only time. As the 2001 season approached, hope sprang eternal. I was scheduled to attend a meeting on Sept. 11th on the 60th floor of the north tower of the World Trade Center. The meeting was canceled the Friday prior, and I left work on Sept. 10th elated because I could now stay up late and watch the Giants-Broncos game on Monday Night Football. Bleary-eyed, the next morning I went into the office like many New Yorkers and watched with the rest of the world the events of Sept. 11th, only realizing later that morning how close I had come to being a part of the events of that day.https://www.stlouisfanshop.com/31-Cardinals_Custom

After the pivotal events of Sept. 11, 2001, there were two more Super Bowl victories in 2007 and 2011—victories that, sadly, my father was no longer around to savor. As of late, the Giants have undergone another drought, but with age comes wisdom, and a Giants loss no longer ruins my weekend...as much.