FOXBOROUGH, Mass. - Patriots owner Robert Kraft sat behind his wide desk and marveled at how his team’s jersey could be the target of so many boos — even when it’s worn by a 14-year-old girl. This wasn’t Randy Moss or Rodney Harrison hearing the catcalls. They’re used to it. This was Anna Grant, a high school freshman who had worked hard to win the Punt, Pass & Kick competition in her age group as the team’s when she was introduced along with the other winners before the fourth quarter of San Diego’s playoff win last Sunday, she was the only one booed by the crowd in Indianapolis, home of New England’s fiercest rival. “Why should a champion be booed?” the boss of the three-time Super Bowl winners said Tuesday. “She won an intensive competition. She’s supposed to be honored.” His team is getting the same reaction — not because of the spying incident in the season opener but because fans like to see teams at the top get knocked off, he said. If the Chargers can’t do it Sunday, New England will be headed to its fourth Super Bowl in seven seasons. But first comes the coin flip before the AFC championship and Grant will be out on the field for that, invited by Kraft, who felt badly that she had been booed. “What I decided is that we would honor her here before this game,” Kraft said in an interview in his office filled with photos, footballs and other memorabilia. “We will recognize her as the winner on the field. Our fans will know.” Grant returned from school Tuesday and heard a phone message from Andre Tippett, the Patriots’ executive director of community affairs and a former star linebacker. She called back and was ecstatic when Tippett extended the invitation — plus tickets for her, her parents and two brothers — to take part. “I was just in shock,” she said. Kraft knows the hoots were not directed at the high school freshman from Stratham, N.H., about 20 miles north of the Massachusetts border. It’s just that the jersey provokes an instant response, usually a negative one. Grant also understands, and even smiled when she heard the boos. “Before I went down there, my friends said, ‘You know, you’ll probably get booed,”’ she said in a telephone interview. “I was kind of waiting for it. “It really didn’t bother me at all,” she added. “People at the game came up to me afterward and said, ‘It’s not you. It’s your jersey.”’ It wasn’t always that way. When Adam Vinatieri’s last-play field goal gave the Patriots their first championship as huge underdogs to the St. Louis Rams after the 2001 season, red, white and blue confetti — not boos — poured down in the Louisiana Superdome.
his team gets booed, because they?re a organisation of assclowns, it starts at the owners seat, over the coach down to the players on the field. probably even their waterboys are douchbags.
I terms of a winning organization being total pieces of shit, i feel the Pats have now past the Yankees for 1st place. The Yankees may not have won a championship since the Pats starting winning, yet the Yankees have the douche title to their name with the ownership and entitlement bleeding from their pores. The Patriots have become less of a classy organization since the acquisition of Rodney Harrison, and the true colors of the coach and owner coming out. Also, I am a Yankee fan.
The main difference between the Patriots and the Yankees is class. While the Yankees have certainly won their championships with a sense of arrogance, they also have sportsman-like manner, and never resorted to cheating to win. Clearly the Patriots have shown their classlessness throughout this entire season, from runinng up the score to the actions of their head coach (no explanation necessary why he lacks any sort of decency). Joe Torre was always the first one to tip his hat to opposing managers/players and give them credit where it was due. Some will point to the recent allegations of steroid use by several Yankees in the Mitchell Report as a form of cheating, however the organization had no knowledge of the players using any performance enhancing drugs. Personally I feel that the report is all just heresay without admission by the players or positive test results.
Class and a massive steroid conspiracy are two different things. I too, am a yankee fan. I know that if I didn't grow up rooting for them, I would hate them more than any other baseball team. They still are one of the "classiest" organizations in any sport. But if you think for a second that at least half of any baseball team isn't juicing, then it's time to take your head out of your ass.
the worst are the recent "converts" who know nothing abt football yet scream "GO PATS!!!", pretty much the typical NE Pats fan....
Even better are those that really don't watch football at all but claim to be Patriots fans because that is the only team that they have heard of this year (that would be a dig on the media who have mentioned no other teams except for NE all season long. THE PATH TO PERFECTION ENDS SUNDAY!
LOL...........I love this thread! In asnwer to Abyzmul's question, we were loveable when the Patriots were the Patsies.... ...and whether spygate ever happened, Harrison ever played for us or not, or whatever....you all would still hate us, and no less vehemently. I know, as a Red Sox fan, I know all about the Yankee fans. I'd rather be a hated winner than a loveable loser. Whoever cared whether the rest of the world likes you or not? Do New Yorkers care what Bostonians or Philadelphians think of them?
Haha... that girl goes to my daughters school. I have to admit it is pretty low to boo a young kid like that just because of who you root for, or whose jersey you wear. Just goes to show every team has its bad apples.
I laughed when I saw that live on TV. She seemed to have a sort of "what did i do??" reaction but in a lighthearted way.
Apparently you care enough to come on a JETS message board to defend your boys. And, (not that this is directed at you so much in particular, but fans in general) just sos we're clear, YOU are not a "hated winner." Regardless of how much of your sorry existence you have invested in tirelessly following the Pats, you are not part of the team. Your relentless fawning over them has zero effect on how they play. YOU haven't won anything, except derision.
The Patriots barely existed on the NFL landscape before 2001, heck they were down near Arizona level.
