Jayne: Seahawks’ ill-fated pass heralded precious rite of passage

In that regard, sports are just like the rest of life. The losses bring more pain than the victories bring pleasure, and that pain is an important part of growing up. Consider the profound words of Lord Alfred Tennyson: ” ‘Tis better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all.” More poignantly, consider the profound words of the Bruno Kirby character in “This Is Spinal Tap,” as he says of Frank Sinatra, “When you’ve loved and lost like Frank has, you know about life.”

So, now my 11-year-old knows a little more about life. That is a good thing, lest he start to think the Seahawks win the Super Bowl every year. Alas, the world is filled with disappointments, and still we soldier on.

Yet, I have buried the lead of this column. You see, the point is not that the Seahawks lost a football game; the point is that Matthew and I spent the past five months watching and talking about and deciphering the team. In the grand scheme of things, this ranks well down the list of life’s priorities, and yet it is important.

There is a scene in the 1991 movie “City Slickers” in which a bunch of middle-aged men are sitting around talking about baseball, and one of their cohorts points out the silliness of their passion for sports. To which the Daniel Stern character retorts, “You’re right, I suppose. I mean, I guess it is childish. But when I was about 18 and my dad and I couldn’t communicate about anything at all, we could still talk about baseball. Now that — that was real.”

On the scale of profoundness, that ranks about an 8.5. And that was the whole point of Sunday’s Super Bowl for me. Sure, it’s a silly game in which modern-day gladiators wear armor and try to knock each other down, but for me it was an opportunity to connect with my son. It was a shared experience that we both enjoy. And the way the game turned out, it was something that we will talk about for the rest of our lives — once we can bring ourselves to talk about it at all.

Making a connection

That, I suppose, is the whole point of parenting. You make a connection with your children, and the changes in that connection can serve as a measuring stick for their growth and development and maturation. For some, the connection might come through a shared love of music or a shared love of fishing or, I don’t know, a shared interest in scouting. For us it is sports. It doesn’t matter how it happens; what matters is that it happens at all.

So, yes, last week’s Super Bowl was a rite of passage. And not only for my son.