“Wait until next year” always seemed hard, but “Wait for two weeks” might be harder.

For a fan of the Arizona Cardinals, one of the lowliest franchises in professional sports, you’d think that soaking in the two weeks before the Super Bowl would be easy, almost fantasy like. However, I can assure you while people may have begun to respect me and my team for the first time in my life these past few weeks, the wait has been unbearable. The age-old adage is that patience is a virtue. But when you live life through the eyes of a sports fan, agonizing over every loss and savoring every win, the one time the sports gods finally throw one your way, you want that game and that moment to begin as fast as possible, virtues or no virtues.

Maybe all of this makes me spoiled. I should be thrilled about my Cinderella-esque Cardinals finally making their way to a game no one thought they’d ever reach. Like the team, I should be overwhelmed with excitement that the media, the sports world, and casual fans near and far finally pay attention to a team I loved even during the 3-13 years. This Super Bowl is more than just a game to me, it’s a lifetime of memories (good and bad) finally sealed with one defining moment. It’s the justification for Cardinal fans such as much self for sitting on the couch to watch meaningless games many December afternoons. It’s the satisfaction of knowing your loyalty finally has a happy ending win or lose.

I may be boring the casual fans that read this article, but if you’ve ever genuinely felt the passion of rooting for a team who was at one time or another the punch line of their respective league you understand. You understand the false sense of hope and optimism and the crashing realization your team didn’t play with same intangibles for success as others.

To those fans this all makes sense.

And while that franchise you rooted for and celebrated with as they made the proverbial one-eighty may have played in a league in which the championship round was right around the corner from the previous series, you still know how that wait feels.

I’ve spent so much time in my NFC Championship t-shirt that holes have already begun to form around the sleeve stitching. I have watched so much film on Larry Fitzgerald in ten days, that even I think I could help Dick Lebau devise a scheme to stop him. I’ve heard so much about Ben Roethlisberger’s poor Super Bowl XL performance, that even I have sympathy for the enemy. I ‘ve had so much time to kill that I decided to build Anquan Boldin a back door in the locker room the next time he wants to avoid the media at University of Phoenix Stadium. And I have waited so long in ten days to watch this game that I thoroughly believe Kurt Warner will be inducted into the Hall of Fame before kickoff even starts.

OK so those were probably more for a chuckle than a genuine effort to make any of you feel sympathetic for me, but the truth remains that fourteen days for a fan who has waited a lifetime is simply put too long. While the media day festivities, the press conferences, the plane arrivals, the SportsCenter top plays, the game breakdown, and the attention is something a typical fan would be delighted to see their team at the center of. I, however, am sick of it. If you want real honesty I was sick of it nine days ago.

I have seen this team in a matter of weeks transform itself from perennial punching bag to the toast of the nation, and while each moment, each highlight, each reminder of my team’s success is one that I should savor, and it comes with a sense of anxiousness that screams out of me “PLAY THE DAMN GAME ALREADY!”

So on Sunday, while you sip on your party beverages, eat your chips, place your bets, and watch the game for casual interest, think of me and the wait I have endured to watch the biggest game of my life. My wish for all of you is that one day you have the privilege to end your years of waiting and experience the excruciating fourteen-day wait to watch your team play in the big game. Maybe then you’ll see the true agony and triumph of a sports fan.

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Dave Dulberg is, was, and always will be a diehard Cardinals fan. He wears so much Cardinal’s paraphernalia he’s often asked if he gets paid for advertising. Dulberg is an undergraduate student at the University of Southern California, and hosts a weekly sports radio show on kscr.org.

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