Had I not been cheering for the losers for going on three decades, no doubt I would loathe the New York Jets.

The team is brash, with a coach with foot-in-mouth disease. They talk trash and flaunt arrogance — everything I cannot stand about sports at every level.

The Jets will take the field later this evening in Pittsburgh against the Steelers with a trip to the Super Bowl on the line.

I will never cheer louder or harder for a victory. No Super Bowl tickets will follow a Jets’ win. No trip to Dallas to spend $200 to watch it on a big screen. I will enjoy no financial gain.

The reward will be a moment in time that cannot be duplicated. The moment showed itself on New Year’s Eve at some unknown rest stop along Interstate 10 somewhere in North Florida. A television camera crew caught up to a maroon-clad father standing next to his maroon-clad father. The side door slid open and another maroon-clad Bulldog — this one no older than 10 — exited, football in hand.

“Why are you going to Jacksonville to watch the Gator Bowl?” the TV man asked.

“How many chances are you going to get to do something like this?” the youngster’s father said, looking at both his dad and his son. “Not many.”

The camera panned away and off went the minivan toward the Gator Bowl. Yes, it was a football game for these three, but so much more. Had their van broken down in Tallahassee and they couldn’t make it to the game, likely they would have found a TV and a sandwich and had the time of their lives — together.

Dad watched the Jets first — and only — Super Bowl victory in 1969. He cursed Richard Todd in the 1970s, took out his aggression on a French-built Renault Alliance in the ’80s and resigned himself to rooting for a loser throughout the 1990s. I joined him in rooting for losers more than 20 years ago. The opportunity for us to watch the Jets in a Super Bowl together has never presented itself, save last year’s magical run that ended with Peyton Manning’s brilliance.

Today, I will cheer longer and harder for a win than any other sporting event in my life. I won’t cheer as much for the Jets as I will the chance of capturing a moment.

Dad and I won’t be in Dallas, but we will be together — a rarity due simply to distance — in New York rooting for the Jets.

The outcome of the Super Bowl doesn’t really matter. It’s a chance at a moment — a joyous and oh-so-rare moment.

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Sean P. Murphy is web editor. He can be reached at smurphy@vicksburgpost.com