I have been a fervent TV fan of the US Women's National Team since just 2011 (occasional before that), because of the latest and most dramatic World Cup goal, men or women -- Allie Krieger to Carli Lloyd to Megan Rapinoe to Abby Wambach in the 122nd minute to tie Brazil in the World Cup quarterfinals,
This is the best three-minute soccer clip ever, from "It will go down as the USA's worst performance ever in the women's World Cup" to "Abby Wambach has saved the USA's life" and "What a ball that was by Megan Rapinoe":
But seeing their games in person in previous World Cups and Olympics, or even in-between friendlies, was never financially doable.
That changed late last month. I was able to see the exciting semifinal win against Germany, the only game in the last four years they were favored to lose, thanks to a local bus tour company, Yankee Trails near Albany, NY, offering a ticket and ride to Montreal for a mere $105.
When New York City decided, on really short notice, to throw a ticker-tape parade for the World Cup champions Friday, at first I was reluctant -- driving to and parking in NYC on a weekday is grueling and expensive. The train is just expensive, about $100 per person.
So I checked the Yankee Trails site, and found a $50 ride to the parade, and became less reluctant.
Tried to talk soccer-fan friends into going, no luck. But I'd never been to a ticker-tape parade, even for other teams I root for, so, once-in-a-lifetime and all that, I bought a solo ticket.
And it was wonderful -- pure joy for all the spectators, and for the World Champions, too.
More, below.
When I got to the bus garage just before the 5:15 am scheduled departure, I thought I'd missed it. For the Montreal game, there were 20 people standing around waiting, Friday nobody. Then I saw a couple people waiting in their car -- soccer mom and daughter, so I felt groggily better.
There were two stops to pick up others, at the first a TV reporter came on and got me to chat a bit (couldn't embed, here's the link --http://www.cbs6albany.com/...).
At the second, three 40-something former soccer players/coaches (Barb, Lynn and Toni) and Lynn's 70-something parents got on (after their own TV interview, no link anymore). They sat right in front of me.
Besides them, there were three soccer mom/daughter pairs on the bus. I thought the bus would be almost full like the Montreal bus, but that it wasn't made the ride more comfortable for us all.
We were let off at Canal and Lafayette, the soccer moms/daughters went their own way, and I tagged along with Barb, Lynn, Toni, and Lynn's parents as we looked for a place to watch.
We ended up across Broadway from City Hall, just south of Murray Street, where it wasn't that crowded, though we couldn't get up in front.
Here they are, at our spot (from left, Barb, Toni, Lynn, and the 'rents):
The parade itself was hit-or-miss -- the five (I think) floats with World Cup champions on them were great, and we joined with the hundreds around us in cheering and calling out the names of the champions as they rode by; the more-than-five floats without players were meh.
Here's my not-close-enough photo of the float with Rapinoe, (vindicated coach) Jill Ellis, Lloyd, Mayor DeBlasio, and the World Cup itself:
There wasn't much ticker-tape around us -- modern buildings there don't have openable windows. But a block south was the Woolworth building, NYC's first skyscraper still with real windows, and plenty of paper and streamers (toilet paper, maybe) came from its windows.
But the real story of Friday was the people, and their happiness, excitement and joy at being there for this unique celebration. EVERYONE, including the World Champions, looked and acted like they were having the time of their lives.
After the parade had passed us by, Lynn's parents headed uptown to buy some Capezio dancing shoes(!), and we repaired to the nearest bar on Murray Street for a seat, air conditioning, bathrooms, and cold beer. The parade was playing on TVs there, so we would know when to head out for the City Hall ceremony.
We did not have tickets to get inside the City Hall fence, all of us having lost the online lottery for those. So we checked out the view of the ceremony site at the fence on the Broadway side, walked around to the Park Row side to see if it was better, it was not so we returned to the Broadway gate.
Then we lucked out. Because there were obviously empty seats inside, they let a few score people in, including us.
We didn't sit in the seats, and tried to get as close as we could, standing as we had all day.
Here's Pinoe getting her key to the city:
And Abby giving her valedictory to the team, and fans, she's been such a great leader of:
Here's video and audio (not mine obviously), of Carli and Abby, from much closer:
After all that, we headed back north and grabbed a late lunch, seats, air conditioning, coldish beers, and mini-bathrooms in Little Italy; shopped and people-watched a bit; and finally got back on the bus for home.
Still glowing with joy. What a day!
And we weren't the only ones feeling it. We saw it all around us for hours, thousands of happy, smiling fans like us.
But the happiest of all were our World Champions.
Jill Ellis:
I actually googled a ticker tape because I had never really seen one but today was unbelievable. I mean, I thought winning a World Cup was special but this was, it was mind-blowing today. ...
Just being on the float and actually looking into people’s faces and seeing how happy they were. It was unbelievable.
Carli Lloyd:
It was honestly an amazing thing. I remember thinking, "They’re here because of us," and that is unreal because of what we accomplished. We’ve etched our names in history. People will be talking about this, this moment for the rest of their lives. ...
This is the best moment of my life. Winning the World Cup, having this parade in New York City, going to LA LIVE; everything has just been unbelievable. In the blink of an eye everything has changed and it’s a good thing.
Pinoe:
It was just moment after moment after moment. Just after things died down, we’d go to another block and people were just so jazzed. Seeing people in the crowd too with the jerseys on and knowing us, it was so cool sharing that moment with them. ...
This was the most insane show of support and the fans were able to share it with us. Some of our friends and family were here and it just blew us out of the water completely. We know that we won the World Cup and that’s big; we know what we’re doing is special and amazing but that just totally blew everyone out of the water.
Tobin Heath:
This whole day has pretty much blown me away. The support we have received, the people that came out, just the way the fans were cheering for us. I swear, at every bend there were more people, and more people were gathering and cheering. It was overwhelming the support and the love that we felt coming here and I’m still blown away and in shock.
Lauren Holiday:
I think hearing "Okay, we’re going to have a parade," I was like, "Oh, that’s pretty cool." Obviously, I’ve heard of it, I know that it’s cool, but it just exceeded all of our expectations. It’s seriously one of the coolest things I’ve ever been a part of and the people just kept coming and just hearing all of them and how united they were to stand behind us this whole tournament was incredible and we can’t thank them enough. ...
My favorite moment on the float was A-Rod (Amy Rodriguez) shushed the crowd and she actually started a chant and they all came along with it. That was pretty cool. I just feel like that they were so ready for us to interact with them and they actually listened to her when she shushed them. That was my favorite part.
Christie Rampone:
Unbelievable! You never really know what to expect: being on those floats, seeing the confetti drop, and the crowd was so loud, it was so inspiring. ...
I just took it all in. Just seeing all my people from Jersey and all the Jersey signs out there inspiring and the young kids in red, white and blue with big smiles on their faces, it doesn’t get better than that!
Heather O'Reilly:
I grew up in New Jersey, so I knew a ticker tape parade is a massive deal. I didn’t know how many people would turn out. I know that America loves this team, but I was just completely overwhelmed by the number of fans out there. I think we really touched a lot of people by what we did up in Canada and we’re real proud of that. Everybody was behind us, and we really felt that today with the seas of people! ...
My favorite part of the parade was absolutely screaming the entire time. I was just leaning over the float and screaming, "We did it!" Everybody was just erupting in applause and cheers. Everybody was just going nuts and it was adrenaline the entire time. I had chills from all the support. It was amazing!
Amazing, unbelievable, inspiring, incredible, cool, overwhelming, mind-blowing, insane, the best moment of my life -- good to hear that our World Champions enjoyed the parade even more than we all did.