David Tyree: Super Bowl Hero Stands Against Marriage Equality

Our attention is never fixed, we’re scattered, busy and as our days seem quicker we no doubt wonder if we are smaller.

In this life we are lucky if we get one moment that we are remembered for, that defining moment, a footprint that lasts far longer than we do. 

David Tyree was a nominal professional football player, a common man in that world, disposable and eminently forgettable save for that one moment, that brief flash of something unimagined, something God like in the realm of that game.

The scenario sounds like an exaggerated backyard memory of you and your friends pretending to be pro football players.

The Super Bowl hanging in the balance as the quarterback slowly walks up to the line. 

The ball is snapped and your friend steps back, his lineman breaking down before his eyes as a horde descends upon him. They’re pawing at him, nearly grabbing hold before he miraculously breaks free and hurls the ball into the sky. 

In your memory the ball is thrown higher, farther than it really was. There aren’t two defenders swarming around you, but five and when you reach up, leaping off a ground whose feel you have now forgotten you are Lynn Swann, you are Dwight Clark. 

You have Jerry Rice’s hands now and as you catch the ball nothing can shake it free, not even the arm of a brutally strong beast that pulls at your arm, trying, so desperately to pull the ball free. He’s stronger than you, a better player too but right now you know you can beat him as long as you hold tight, pressing the ball against your helmet with all of your might as he brings you down. Your body contorted, your back bent as you crash to the ground, that other hand coming to meet the ball, and preserve the catch. 

It’s a true fairytale. A marvel of athleticism made greater by its impeccable timing. David Tyree’s memorable moment is magic before our eyes because he is some guy you’ve never heard of doing what you always dreamed of, and what you thought too perfect to grace realities stage. 

It doesn’t matter that Tyree never caught another ball in the NFL, retiring last year after struggling to stay on the field following the Super Bowl in 2008. Another athlete betrayed by a busted knee. For all intents and purposes it doesn’t matter if Tyree ever caught a ball before “The Helmet Catch” either. Nothing on the field could ever usurp his one memorable moment, nothing could take that away. It still can’t.

The other day David Tyree filmed an interview for the National Organization for Marriage, a group that stands opposed to marriage equality. According to their website, NOM is embarking on “a mission to protect marriage and the faith communities that sustain it”. 

In the interview, Tyree said that “if they pass this gay marriage bill” they being the New York State Legislature, it would be “the beginning of our country sliding toward, it’s a strong word, but anarchy”. Tyree then added that marriage equality would be “the moment where our society in itself loses its grip with what’s right”.

Some will say that David Tyree is entitled to his opinion, and that he is a devout Christian and they’ll be right. But I know devout Christians, and like David Tyree I believe in right and wrong, I just think he’s wrong and some of them do too. 

Like it or not David Tyree has sway, a voice that people respond to because of that one moment of athletic prowess. He gets to speak like an expert on a sensitive matter like gay marriage at a sensitive time because we don’t require expertise from people when they speak like an expert anymore. 

But as time fills in and New York either accepts or denies not just this extension of gay rights, but human rights, David Tyree has accomplished a rare feat, he now has two memorable moments that define him. One thrilling and one that misunderstands love and compassion and betrays many Judeo Christian principles in the name of a principle contorted by man and all his many failings. 

Personally I’d rather be forgettable.