..... RED NATION .....: Centered (by the Disciple)

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/29/sports/football/29linebacker.html?_r=1

Once you find your center; you will find the truest sense of yourself.

WELCOME TO RED NATION

Red Nation is a collective of passionate, bewildered, and estranged fans of the Arizona Cardinals football franchise. We are a group of five men, all excited but cautiously suspect of the team's early success in this 2009 NFL season.

This is our sound board and offering of what it is like to support this often hopeless and hapless organization. All having been burned in the metal bleachers of Sun Devil Stadium, we have been through it all, some more than others.

Some have held strong, some have gone mad, some have ventured away, both emotionally and geographically. But when the weather cools down and the winter approaches, we all see start to see one thing, Cardinal RED.

"If there is no struggle; there is no progress."

--Frederick Douglass

MEET THE CITIZENS OF THE NATION:

The Godfather - Our patriarch, and season ticket holder since the Red Birds migration to the Valley of the Sun in 1988. Wise, patient but at times delusion, he is our seminal source of both inspiration and derailment, depending on what quarter we are in.

The Disciple - Faithfully shares season tickets with The Godfather, listens and mines for the meaning in it all. He is devoted, a believer who summons the direct epileptic word of the Nation spirit, which occasionally whispers for him to drink heavily.

The Stoic - A man of math and science, he withholds his excitement for Monday morning when there is absolutely zero chance the Cards can once again let him down. His faith is bruised and battered, but, ever impassive, he weathers it all, watching and waiting solemnly.

The Doubting Thomas Jones - Scoffing and criticizing, he gave up hope about the time another heralded first round draft pick averaged about 12 rushing yards a game. It is believed that he has burned his Clyde Simmons jersey, once adorned with pride, and is now impulsively clad in Giant blue.

The Prodigal - Lost in a sprawling itinerant life of higher purpose, has ventured away from his fanatical roots of his youth, but a part of him longs for the days of screaming at handicapped, literally disabled, fans to fricking stand up during Jake Plummer's last minute drives into the 98 playoffs, the golden days of the Nation.