Blue skies opened up over St. Louis in 1995. After the heartbreaking loss of their hometown Cardinals, who used the fabled “Gateway to the West” to escape to the deserts of Arizona, there was finally hope again. There was a reason to get excited again on Sunday.

Though the emergence took years to take hold, it wasn’t long before a glimmer of hope became a blinding flash of decadent light that was poised to create magic where there was futility, to rewrite history where there had been failure. And St. Louis football would forever change in the hearts of St. Louis and the eyes of the world. That flash was none other than the greatest performer in the “Greatest Show on Turf,” Number 28, Marshall Faulk, a living legend; a true hero…champion.

He ran through the record books and straight to legendary status right here before our eyes. He caused such a euphoric delirium that most of us never even realized we were watching what would be some of the greatest football memories of our lives.

Some of us may live to be a hundred years old and see many different types of achievements on and off the field. But there will never be another one like Marshall.

Though even today there are still pieces of the dream teams of recent years, one thing that is painfully obvious is that the dream is over. Kurt Warner is playing for the deserters and Air Martz has taken up Lion taming. Marshall is ready to hang it up as he hobbles about on his war-torn knees. The “Greatest show” is dead and though the “dream” came true for a while, nothing lasts forever and it too is nothing more than a golden memory.

Blue skies have opened up once again over St. Louis in 2006, and a new dream is being nourished and savored. Yesterday it was one man, but today there is an arsenal. A young gunslinger, lightning fast receivers, an exciting new young coach, and a monstrously dangerous successor to the legendary throne of the king of the rock porter himself; a freakishly exciting bomb in a bottle. Number 39 out of central Oregon itself, Stephen Jackson. When he accepted the ball from Marshall’s hands, there is no doubt that it glowed like red kryptonite.

Yes there is a new flash lighting up in the sky over the Edward Jones Dome and one thing is for sure, the “Show” will go on.

~Mark Adams/The WatchDog~