Congratulating the New England Patriots for Winning Super Bowl XXXVIII
CONGRATULATING THE NEW ENGLAND PATRIOTS FOR WINNING SUPER BOWL XXXVIII -- (House of Representatives - February 04, 2004)
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Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague and friend from New Hampshire for his graciousness in yielding to me, and I yield myself such time as I may consume. I am glad to be along with him and many of our colleagues from New England cosponsoring this resolution congratulating the New England Patriots on their second Super Bowl title in 3 years.
I have said this before, Mr. Speaker. In the profession which we have chosen and are lucky enough to have had some success in, we sometimes find ourselves being blamed for things that are not our fault. But those occasions are offset by those times when we can bathe in entirely unearned glory.
The New England Patriots, as they now are, are an excellent team that did a superb job, well coached; they dealt with injuries, they held together, compiled a superb record. And those who represent New England in Congress get to stand up here and bathe in their glory. I am grateful to them for winning the championship and for the fact that we can do that.
I do not think politicians ought to insinuate ourselves into professional sports. It has been my experience that at professional sports events, the needed ones are the fans. So we are not trying to do that. What we are doing jointly is to pay our respects to a group of very dedicated, hardworking young men.
Let us be clear. To do what any professional football team does, particularly to do what the Patriots do, requires a degree of discipline and dedication and willingness to do hard physical work in very adverse weather conditions. They are very well coached. The ownership of the team deserves credit.
I will make just one political point. I am very proud to note that the stadium in which they won so many of their games and from which they went out to win the Super Bowl championship, in the town of Foxborough, Massachusetts that I represent, was not built with public money. This is an indication that there is no need to go to the taxpayers to get money to build public stadiums. There is an ability to do that when a team is well-run and well-managed and well-owned by private capital.
So I really want just again to say how proud the people, not just of the town of Foxborough or my district or northern Massachusetts are, but all over New England, as my colleague from New Hampshire makes clear, because as the team is the New England Patriots, we had to import somebody from New Hampshire, because Massachusetts is incapable at this point just technically of bipartisanship on our own. But I really appreciate the gentleman from New Hampshire's cooperation, and congratulations to the New England Patriots for doing an important thing so well.
Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.
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