Having grown up a Yankees fan and a baseball fan all my life, you wouldn't think I'd be much of a New England Patriots fan. In fact, I'm not. The only reason I know anything about football is all those years I spent in marching band, when it was important to have some idea of what was going on in the game so I would know when to get my instrument warmed up. (I played the sousaphone so it was an operation to get it ready to go...)

Anyway, I don't follow football and I'm not a "New England" sports fan, despite having lived here since 1985. Hmm, as I recall, that year, my first outside of New York, the Patriots made a run at the Superbowl, but were defeated... and most of the years I've lived here it's been drought for all the Boston teams.

But I think maybe I have caught a little of the experience of being a NE sports fan this year. This is the thought that went through my head a few weeks ago, before they faced the Oakland Raiders: "Gee, the Patriots are playing a big game ... but I better not root for them or I'll jinx them." That's not the thought most Yankees fans have when their team is facing a challenge. We Yankees fans have no fear of failure. That is not the case with fans here.

A commentator on Fox said, after the game, "There was no Bucky Dent or Bill Buckner here tonight!" The fan experience in New England has been shaped by defeat. Which leads me to wonder, how will this experience change them?

The way the Patriots did it was inspiring, I have to say. Because what they did was overacheive. There was no one star player the opposition could focus on stopping. I thought perhaps the classiest thing I saw all day was the Patriots being introduced as a team, and not as the individual starting lineup. And that's how they won. During the fourth quarter, the boyfriend and I were debating who should be MVP. Ty Law? Lawyer Malloy? It seemed like the defense were on the field pretty much the entire game so we thought it would be tough to give it to a member of the offense. Heck, most of the points the Patriots scored were by their defense. But then came that long drive toward that game winning field goal with the clock running down... maybe... They gave it to Brady in the end, because when he really had to execute, he did. But they each did that, every one. Well, you gotta give it to somebody.

Overacheiving. No one star player. Overcoming adversity all season. Finding a way to win. How can any red-blooded American sports fan not be interested in a story like that? Okay, I wasn't actually intending to draw a parallel to the 1996 Yankees, but come to think of it, the comparison is there in a small measure. The difference, though, is that the Patriots have NEVER won it all before. There's no tradition of winning for them to draw on. They just had to dig deep and get the job done without Terry Glenn, without Drew Bledsoe, without letting the controversy (wasn't there some flap about coaches recently, too?) get to them.

The other difference, of course, is can Patriots fans, basking in the glow of victory right now--can they keep believing? Or is it right back to the "morass of negativity" that characterizes the New England sports fan?

Maybe I'm being unfair by lumping Patriots fans and Red Sox fans together. (And I know I'm being unfair by excluding the "indoor sports"--but, well, tough...) But well, a couple of summers of sports-radio listening here in Boston have convinced me that it doesn't much matter which team it is--the fans here always brace themselves for the worst.

This time the worst didn't happen. It didn't happen in the snow against Oakland, and it didn't happen against the Steelers even when the defense was getting so tired in the second half. And it didn't happen tonight, even when there was that huge swing of momentum--when there was the touchdown pass fumble return for a touchdown that was negated by the holding penalty. (Is there a simpler way to describe that in football lingo I don't know about? Probably.)

John Madden questioned why the Pats didn't play for overtime. Maybe it was because Bill Belichick knew not to give Fate any more time to turn against them. Instead, one final drive to get within field goal range -- and it worked.

My point is, I guess, to the fans who have waited so long for this sweet feeling--it was important you believed. Because it does take luck as well as skill to make it to the very top of the heap, and there's no way to buy that, train for that, or strategize that. Luck is the unique bailiwick of the avid fan, of the believer. New England's believers finally saw Fate go their way. Someone in the pregame show used the phrase "team of destiny." Another commentator said something like: "After all this nation has been through, I can't pick against a team called 'The Patriots.'" Heck, Joe Andruzzi, a big Patriot defender of some stripe, had three brothers in the audience who were New York City firefighters!

We all know, of course, that karma doesn't guarantee you a win. But in hindsight, having it on your side sure doesn't hurt, does it? (Baseball aside: it wasn't enough to get the Yankees three more outs this year.)

So, Patriots fans, how does it feel? Can you savor it? Your guys came through. They did what they had to do when they had to do it. They executed and came out with success. If you're not used to seeing that, you should definitely savor it. If any of you out there have had your worldview shattered as a result of the win--well, good. It's time for a change.

Now if only you could all learn that the words "Yankees Suck" are not synonymous with "We're Number One."