This is a story about a Miami Dolphins fan who suffered a sudden illness and nearly died, but after emergency surgeries and months of recovery is returning to health and sums up his harrowing journey like so:
Wayne Collard doesn’t mean this in inspirational terms, like watching this team provided some inner strength in his personal battle. Nor does he mean it as a touch of comedy, as if he built up such a scarred resistance to pain watching this team for much of the last 20 years he can withstand more than most.
No, Collard means this literally and pragmatically: If he wasn’t a Dolphins fan, he might be dead.