(From a previous reply)
While there are many who demand winning to earn their loyalty, one thing that has always made Celtics fans stand apart is their loyalty to the team and what they stand for, regardless of the record. I've been a fan for over (ouch!) 40 years, and I was no LESS a fan through the "lean" years when Reggie Lewis and Paul Pierce were basically the only players anchoring this team.
Was it frustrating? Of course! EVERYONE wants to win a Championship ... that's what this is all about, and I'm sure there were times when Paul felt extremely so, to the point of wanting to get the heck out of here. But for many reasons, (mostly money, I imagine), he stuck around and put this team on his back. But we Celtics fans were no LESS fans in those years ... to me, we ALWAYS had a chance, and we were always just short of making it, (and we did make it into the playoffs a few times.)
The ones who were "whining" all those years, were still die-hard fans, and whining because they loved their Celtics so, and couldn't stand to see them not do what they were used to seeing them do: be the best. To the rest of us who didn't spend that time whining, (well, I whined a little), we knew that the time would come when this team would get back to doing what it always did best: winning ... and we were maybe just a bit more patient because we had been around during the last heyday, and knew it was just a matter of time.
To me, that's one of the reasons Paul Pierce is my favorite player ... not because he's the greatest on earth, (for we know that's not "The Truth"), but because he carried this team all those years, and epitomized and embodied all that the Celtics had been about in the "good" years, and brought us across that bridge of mediocrity to our present renaissance. I was content all those years because I knew this would come somehow, someday, and I think it was Paul that instilled that confidence in me, and many others.
He has always been a true Celtic, with the never-say-die attitude, and the Celtic pride and confidence, no matter how discouraging it got. Now he's brought that sense of "GREEN" to the next great period for this team, and to us "die-hards", in the back of our minds and consciousness, we KNEW it would come, and it was destiny and sacrifice and hard work by Paul Pierce that brought it.
To me, this team was never any less of a source of pride, despite those lean years, because no matter who has ever been on the floor dressed in green, they ALWAYS carried that history and pride with them, and you could always feel it, whether we got to the playoffs or not. As far as I'm concerned, this has always been a championship-ready team, even though it may have been history or pride or a die-hard sense of what the Celtics have always embodied, that made me feel that way.
Whether we were winning or not, those guys in green that went out on that parquet floor each night, carried all that being a Celtic was about on their shoulders ... and the rest of us were swept up in that feeling, regardless, because of what it had come to mean over the years. That's what this team has always been about, and always will be about. GO GREEN!
Topic: Why We Never Gave Up (Read 1645 times)