by Carol Dunn
A little over a year ago, Tom Brady’s jersey disappeared from the locker room after Super Bowl 51. Maybe you lost track of the story, but eventually a Lost Jersey Task Force found it in Mexico. The culprit, of course, was a man. And I didn’t assume that just because the dirty laundry was lifted from a men’s locker room. I say that because women do not need to go looking for more dirty laundry to deal with. We get plenty of it lying around the house: t-shirts draped over the back of the couch, dirty jeans standing in a corner, socks on the kitchen counter.
Imagine for one moment what any NFL player’s Super Bowl jersey smells like at the end of the big day. Even when they’re just standing around they sweat like hogs in a bacon factory. So first of all, it smells bad. Plus, it’s got dirt and grass stains all over it. Sometimes players get the snot knocked out of them, so THAT’s on the jersey too. And then, for the winners, there is a champagne shower after the game, which you know has to be the bad-tasting cheap stuff, since even millionaires don’t go spraying $100-a- bottle champagne on a bunch of stinky football players.
If the FBI had asked me (and I don’t know WHY they didn’t) I would have thought they’d find it in the dumpster. Any self-respecting janitor mopping up the champagne and tripping over shoulder pads and shoes and spandex pants would gather up all that malodorous stuff and toss it.
Instead, the jersey was actually stolen by a newspaper director who was an over-the-top memorabilia collector and a remarkably efficient thief. He tried to sell it online. DUH. It’s amazing that some rich guy didn’t snap it up and put it in a display case in his chateau in France, surrounded of course by those pine-tree-shaped air fresheners that you hang on your car’s rear view mirror.
Not only did the stolen jersey task force find Brady’s SB 51 jersey, they ALSO found his jersey from SB 49 AND – a big surprise to everyone – Von Miller’s helmet from SB 50. Now, every serious Broncos fan needs a genuine article like this sitting in their collection, including Von Miller, who admitted he didn’t even know it was missing because he was busy Dancing with the Stars.
No jerseys were stolen from the World Champion Philadelphia Eagles this year, and that’s encouraging for the NFL. Olympians, however, should keep an eye on their dirty laundry.
