Winners and Losers

Today our home team, the New England Patriots, are poised to win their fourth Super Bowl in five years.

Our Boston Red Sox, after not having won a World Series since 1903, won their first World Series in 2004 and won again in 2007.

Meanwhile, the Celtics, a great basketball team when I was growing up but one that's been in the doldrums for nearly 20 years, have lost only eight games this season and are 12 games ahead of the nearest competition.

Out there in media-land, they are starting to call us New Englanders "winners."

I'm just not sure how I feel about this change in perception.

OK, not that sports are the only, or necessarily the best, metric for a regional culture. There's also cuisine; and, of course, theater.

But when you grow up in a place that, let's face it, has established pride in its underdog status; a tiny region rising from the eastern underarm of New York City--and then you start to become winners: it's a big perceptual shift. What does it mean to us as New Englanders to embrace a culture of winning?

Will it mean better education, and stemming the loss of jobs from our northern climates? Will it mean a return to Blue State dominance of national politics; of New England surpassing the south and midwest in leading america's voting for a new president?

Probably not. Hopefully neither will it mean that New Englanders--famously ornery and uncaring about showy wealth and fame--will succumb to the success-crazed, ego-driven culture that appears to be, more and more certainly, dominating our national heritage.

Here's what I'm hoping for today: a really tight, tight game. Long, excellent, stunning passes by both Tom Brady and the Manning baby. High scores on both sides. A close enough game we will all be glued to our sets until the two-minute warning.

And the outcome? Why do we care so much? Why do we want so badly to identify with a team that is the winner? Maybe, just maybe, who knows: if we all asked ourselves this at half-time, while reminding each other that losing is good for the soul, we'd emerge on Monday morning a better nation.

Enjoy the game.