I watched the confetti flow onto the Pittsburgh Steelers as they celebrated at Raymond James Stadium in Tampa Bay and all I could think about was that age old adage: “Second place is ultimately the first loser.”

To be honest even though it was my team, the Arizona Cardinals, who had just lost a heartbreaking Super Bowl, which will go down as one of the best of all-time, I couldn’t help but feel as if I had lost it with them. Minutes earlier I was running the sixty-four yards with Larry Fitzgerald as he gracefully cut through the vaunted Steel Curtain for what looked to be the title clinching score. Only as the seconds ticked off the clock in the final moments of the game, the Steelers had the ball, and like the Cards, I felt defenseless.

I don’t need to summarize the ending to anyone. The experienced team is given just enough time to go 78 yards in eight plays, capped by the impossible throw turned impossible catch that all but crushed the fairy tale ending.

So as you watched the game and enjoyed the ending, savored the Super Bowl for the excellent game it was, and watched as Ben Roethlisberger, Santonio Holmes, Mike Tomlin, and the Rooney Family were presented the Lombardi Trophy, I simply turned it off. I had seen a team, a franchise, and a loser who had come so close to football lore and yet end up what seemed like at first glance still so far away.

I sat with this idea of my team still being losers into the waning hours of Monday morning. I didn’t cry, didn’t talk, I just sat there and played back the final moments of the game, the season, and my life as a fan. And somehow through the despair of defeat, I found that while the Cardinals didn’t get presented with the Lombardi Trophy from Roger Goddell, they left Tampa Sunday night with something no one can take away from them: pride and honor. Darnell Dockett said it best in the post-game press conference, that every single member of the team left their best out on the field and that they are still a part of history, the history of changing the persona of an entire franchise.

So while you couldn’t possibly tell me who got the runner up in the 1983 NL Cy Young Award, or who won silver at the 1972 Men’s 100 M Backstroke, or who lost the 1944 World Series, the effort of those who failed to achieve the ultimate success should be no less valued. I know this may all seem cliché or you may be convinced that this is my attempt to ease my pain, and maybe it is. But the Arizona Cardinals didn’t lose anything on that field Sunday, if anything they gained something that a ring, a trophy, and a ticker tape parade can’t provide.

In a society, that is so result driven and materialistic, it’s easy to believe the Cardinals left Tampa Bay empty handed, since the score said they clearly lost 27-23, and no trophy was received. But how many of you knew how good Larry Fitzgerald was three weeks ago? Or believed Kurt Warner still had one more great run in him? Or had ever seen thousands of people in Arizona actually rooting for a hometown team? Or that a franchise owned by the stingiest of families in the business could rise from the ashes of failure because 53 men truly believed greatness was not that far away? We all have a team or a story that deserves a fairy tale ending, and while superficially my team came away without that ending, maybe the ending was fitting in its own way.

In my heart I know the Cardinals didn’t lose that game, the score or Santonio Holmes catch may tell me otherwise, but the heart and respect for the name on the front of the jersey that each member of the Cardinals played with these last three weeks is a victory within itself. It may not be rewarded with flashy rings, interviews on late night talk shows, or visits with the President, but as a fan who truly appreciates the passion for the game it’s the ultimate trophy.

Thirty-two teams entered the 2008-2009 NFL Season, and while only one ended up with the right to be called Super Bowl Champions, I thoroughly believe the team that finished this year as the “first loser” earned the right to feel as if they are winners, because the things they achieved can’t be measured by results on a football field.

To fans that only see box scores, stats, and ESPN highlights, this “rant,” or attempt to rationalizing a loss, may turn you off because it may appear pathetic. But for fans, who in a matter of weeks almost witnessed their fairy tale of a team, defy all odds, you begin to realize sports is so much more than a ring or a trophy. In its purest form sports is simply the game of our youth. And in reality, winning and losing isn’t as important as the passion and enthusiasm for which the games are played with. While I am aware that mantra may not hold has much validity on the grandest of stages such as the Super Bowl, I can take solace in knowing that my team even in defeat played with the intangibles necessary to achieve greatness.

So while the pain inside of me still hurts, and the feelings of what could have been don’t stray far from my mind, I know what my team has become. While many of you may continue to believe that losing is synonymous with the Arizona Cardinals, I am here to tell you that even though they may be “the first loser” in your minds, they are clearly not who any of us thought they were.

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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 at the University of Southern California, and hosts the weekly National Sports Show on KSCR radio.

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