Billy, Riggo and Section 406

Born and raised just outside of Washington, DC, I first started watching and rooting for the Redskins in the Billy Kilmer era. Back then you were either a Billy guy or a Sonny guy, and my dad was a Billy guy. And back then, season tickets were less accessible and more sought after than the Holy Grail. The standard line was, it's not even worth getting on the waiting list, because nobody ever gave them up and they were handed down from generation to generation and the list was already fifty years long.

Well, coaches and owners and players and fans and stadiums have come and gone. Superbowls have been won and lost. Riggo. Mann. Manley. Glory Days. But it all comes rushing back when I walk in a sea of burgundy and gold toward the stadium before kickoff, and I hope along with the sea that maybe this year the Glory will return. And I kid mysellf: if not this year, certainly next.

And now, I found out yesterday, more than thirty years of ups and downs later, and seven years after signing up for the list, I will have my very own season tickets. My own seats, high in section 406, from which to witness the good, the bad and the ugly of the current and next generations of Redskins.