Super Bowl Sunday, in a lot of ways, is the pinnacle of American excess.
It's filled with marketing hype to the point that 30 seconds of commercial air time Sunday after 6:30 p.m. will cost more than $5 million.
But at the root of this extravagance is the game. And at the heart of the game are the football fans.
You remember them, right?
The fans - the support individuals - who carry the banners, through good times or bad, and who rework their schedules for games and every year reshape logic to believe the cliché that this is their year.
Yes, cliché may be a mild stretch, since every year is someone's year. After all, the Chicago Cubs won the World Series a couple of months ago, showing everyone that anything can happen.
But for a large number of us who have followed professional football in the South, the thought of it ever being "the" year for the Atlanta Falcons seems silly.
And now those Falcons are in the Super Bowl. It's staggering, really. Super Bowls were meant for teams with names like Steelers and Packers and Cowboys. Even the modern dynasty that is the Patriots - the Falcons' foe Sunday - is expected to celebrate titles.
The Falcons? Forget it. Until the last decade, the Falcons had never enjoyed back-to-back winning seasons, for Pete's sake.
That makes Sunday's title shot that much sweeter for the folks who have followed along from the very start.
Chief among that group is Floyd Shadrick, an Apison resident, who was among the excited collection of folks who bought season-tickets right out of the gate for that disastrous first season in 1966.
"We had always watched [pro football] on TV, and when we had the chance to go see it in person, we had to take it," he said.
Shadrick, 75, was among a group of 12 who worked at Combustion Engineering who had season tickets, rented an RV and enjoyed the spectacle that was the early days of Atlanta in the NFL. They kept those tickets through the 1981 season - and yes, that included the first, best shot at glory that was the 1980 NFC West title team - before life got in the way.
While the trips were not as regular, that did not diminish Shadrick's passion for the Falcons. He says he has watched every Falcons game on TV or in person. Yes, he admits to frequent trips to Marietta, Ga., to watch the Falcons on TV - "and eat the Colonel's chicken" - if the games were not broadcast locally.
He named his son Thomas, after the first Falcons draft pick Tommy Nobis - "The best Falcon too," Shadrick says plainly - and routinely took vacations to Greenville, S.C., to watch Atlanta's training camp. In the prehistoric days before TV remote controls and ESPN 6, Shadrick and a friend would go to Atlanta on draft day and read the AP ticker tape feed to see who the Falcons were selecting.
He fluently speaks the language of the Falcons, be that the early days of desperation, the Southern Drawl of the Gritz Blitz, the flapping gums of the Dirty Birds, or the cool tones of Matty Ice.
That experience apparently gives Shadrick a perspective and connection with his favorite team that a lot of folks in the South understand, a lot of folks will never understand and a few more believe to be completely crazy.
He called a local sports show on ESPN 105.1 the Zone and made a prediction of the Falcons winning 45-21 in the NFC title game over the Packers in a game Atlanta won 44-21.
Yes, it missed by a point, but that's not the biggest item on the list.
Nope, the point for Shadrick, and for so many of the folks who have followed the Falcons from the start, is that Sunday offers a real chance to deliver the ultimate prize to a fan base that has for far too long believed that to be unattainable.
"I tried to get to the first Super Bowl [for the Falcons] back in '98," he said. "But when I saw the prices in Houston, there was no way I was going this time."
Well, we all shall see on Sunday. The Falcons are headed to the largest TV stage in the world, considering 19 out of 20 of the most-watched television programs in history were Super Bowls.
As for Shadrick, of course he'll be watching - remember, this is a fan (or fanatic) who watched preseason games or traveled for meaningless games against the 49ers in 12 degree December weather.
He even has a belief in the best - "Falcons by two touchdowns, because nobody can stop that offense" he said confidently Friday - against the favored Patriots.
That, for so many who have suffered with this franchise around these parts for so long, would truly be Super.
Contact Jay Greeson at jgreeson@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6343.