In the gray corridors beneath Lucas Oil Stadium, the contrast of joy and pain was so drastic Sunday night that it almost became disorienting if you swiveled from one scene to the other too fast.
In an open area -- if it was a room, it was a room hosting a party so raucous that it bled into the hallway -- the Giants whooped and hollered and embraced and piled up the trash talk. They were the Super Bowl champions, righteously so. They were delirious.
Down the hall and in another open room, a distance as close as the game itself, the Patriots arrived, one by one, to stand there with their open wounds in front of the media swarm. They were dutiful and resolute, desperately so. They were devastated.
It's probably not headline news to suggest sympathy doesn't come easily to sports writers as a species. Dealing with men who make exponentially more money, who date the world's most glamorous women, and who -- this really bugs sports writers -- eat at restaurants for free can lead to an accelerated onset of envy.
Most of us in this business seem to have a predilection for cynicism anyway. It's not just easy to become jaded -- it's an inevitability if you don't constantly remind yourself how damn fortunate you are to be writing about games for a living.
But even my fellow notepad-toters with the charm of an eel had to feel for Wes Welker, the ball having slipped from his sure hands, and with it, his red-tinted eyes told you, a chance to hold the Lombardi Trophy. Hell, yes, you had to feel for him, hearing him blame himself in a whisper that barely could be heard over the Giants whooping in the distance.
Then there was Brady, possibly the only man ever to walk the earth to look pallid and empty while being consoled by a supermodel. Maybe Gisele wouldn't make for much of a teammate -- a quarterback never blames his receivers, and by proxy that applies to the quarterback's wife. But watching their tender, personal moment unfold in front of countless cameras and slack jaws, it was apparent she knew how just much that single football game meant to her husband, who at that moment looked like he had everything in the world and nothing at all.
As we waited for the next player to arrive and spill his emotions for immediate documentation, a fellow writer I respect remarked that she felt bad for the younger players who still don't know what it feels like to win a Super Bowl.
