Being in big game scores with them

January 26, 2004|Globe Staff

HOUSTON -- Apparently it is possible for the human body to distinguish chills when the windchill is 3 degrees, as the Patriots discovered yesterday when several thousand loyal fans packed a parking lot at Gillette Stadium and lined the sidewalks on Route 1 to wave goodbye to the AFC champions as they departed for Logan Airport, and then for Houston and Super Bowl XXXVIII.

"I think a lot of guys got excited when we left our stadium, and we had all the fans come out and cheer us on getting on the bus," Willie McGinest, one of New England's coolest customers amid the Super Bowl hype, said last night after the team's delayed journey by bus finally was complete. "Especially being as cold as it was. That kind of sent a chill through a lot of guys. That was special, and we want to thank them for coming out and supporting us. That's probably the only time I've been excited, when I saw our fans out there at the stadium to see us off."

Years, or even weeks, from now, when Christian Fauria looks back on his first Super Bowl experience, he wants to have something tangible at which to look. Thus, his new camera goes everywhere with him. As he was snapping photos of the fans in Foxborough yesterday afternoon, it dawned on him that the Patriots are in the Super Bowl, and he is fortunate enough to be one of them.

"I was pulling into the hotel and I was like, `Am I actually playing in this game or am I just a guest here, and I'm going to sell my tickets and go home before the game starts?' " Fauria said last night at the team hotel. "Which is what I usually do, if I even come to the Super Bowl, or if I even watch it. I think it hit me when we got on our buses from the stadium and we were leaving and all the fans were there. I was taking pictures. I was like, `Holy cow, this is great!' It reminds me of a bowl game; where I went to college [University of Colorado] we had a bunch of them. It's kind of got that feeling, but instead of not meaning anything, this game, obviously, has a lot of implications for us personally and team-wise."

Fauria said that on the flight here, "A lot of guys had cameras and they were trying to figure them out. Everybody had a new camera." This experience isn't foreign to Rodney Harrison. He's been through it before, although it's been nine years. So it took the most focused of Patriots a little while longer to step back and appreciate the big picture.