Perfecto en Nicaragua

Years from now, some older Nicaraguans will look back on 2008 and Super Bowl XLII as the year the New England Patriots went 19-0 to cap off the greatest season in NFL history. Never mind that they'll have no idea what "XLII" means, or what a "Super Bowl" is, but they'll know it happened because they'll have the proof. They'll have the official caps and jerseys issued by the NFL commemorating the historical event. How is that possible?

Well, it's no secret that the only way it's possible for a winning Super Bowl team's members to be standing on the field wearing baseball caps declaring them the victors immediately after the game ends is if the NFL had both possibilities covered ahead of time. The team that wins gets their hats and jerseys distributed, but what happens to the ones made up for the eventual losers? Well, for one thing, they could become very valuable collector's items on e-Bay, and that may yet happen.

Instead, the humanitarian organization World Vision made arrangements with the NFL to donate those hats and jerseys to two small, impoverished villages in southern Nicaragua. Once the game of football was explained to the kids (they know "football" as what we ignorant Americans call "soccer"), they were supposedly thrilled. Thrilled to have a piece of sports memorabilia that could one day be worth thousands of dollars to them. I wonder if they know? And I wonder how many of them will sell their hats and/or jerseys on e-Bay, and use the money to help their communities? I think it would be wonderful if even a few of them made such a selfless gesture. Think of how much money some rabid New England Patriots fan would pay to have one of those jerseys. This has the potential to change a lot of peoples' lives for the better. Not that making a bunch of small, poor children happy isn't a good thing, too. But they could have done that with a bunch of Nerf balls. Someone should tell those poor people how much money they may be holding in their hands.