On Saturday June 18, 2016, my brother married his beautiful wife Megan in our hometown of Cleveland, OH. This was just a day before Game 7 of the legendary Cavs vs. Warriors NBA Championship, which had the town abuzz (and then some).
I decided to look outside of the box, intertwining Nick and Megan’s relationship with the saga that is our beloved Cleveland sports teams.
Due to ongoing circumstances, a few people have asked me to post this speech (you’ll understand why once you read it and see the date I’m posting this).
My best man speech for Nick: “Things go better with Nick and Megan together”
Megan, I’d like to be the first person to welcome you to the Roberto family! For better or for worse, you’re one of us Italian Stallions now! You look absolutely fantastic tonight, so once again, congratulations and welcome to the never-ending martini party!
So… Nick’s the cool one. Always has been, always will be. Whenever I’d make a new friend and we’d get to talking about family, I’d mention my older brother Nick, and would always say “he’s the cool one”. Super charismatic sales guy, loved by everyone, always up to speed with sports and popular culture… you know the drill, and that’s one of the reasons why we’re here today.
So as the quieter, slightly more introverted younger brother, it’s my job to take a back seat and observe.
And there’s one observation that’s just painfully easy to see: it’s that things go better with Nick and Megan together. Now, this isn’t to downplay the other parts of their lives, because great things happened then, but think about when these two have been firing on all cylinders… running their A++ game, absolutely “killing it”, as we say. It’s the years when they’re together – and everyone around them is better for it as well!
To me, it’s really that simple. In a relationship, is the whole greater than the sum of the parts? And with these two, it’s extremely clear that the answer is yes.
So I’m not here to provide any advice – the quick advice is to stick together and things will go better. Instead, I’m here to watch and observe.
Now, as you all know, the livelihood of this city, also known as Believeland, is closely tied to the successes and failures of our beloved sports franchises. And when you start timestamping things, you’ll start to notice that it’s not just Nick and Megan whose livelihoods are better when they’re together. It’s the entire city.
So let’s quickly chart out Nick and Megan’s timeline. They met and became friends in 1992 at Richmond Hts. during the 8th grade, and a year later, both families moved to Mayfield – best decision ever, I must add.
So what else happened in Cleveland during those early years of their relationship? Well, this is when the party really started – The Indians built Jacobs Field downtown, and it started what was quite possibly the most fun five years of Cleveland sports history – not coincidentally when Megan and Nick were together – truly some of the golden years in both their lives and the city’s!
We made it to the World Series in 95, but that one didn’t go so well – we were just outmatched – yet the real reason is because Nick and Megan weren’t yet dating at that time.
They officially started dating in 1996 – I believe that was Junior year. And what happened in 1997? The best and most dramatic Indians season of our lifetimes – where we basically lost the World Series by one inning. Yet the real reason is because Nick and Megan weren’t yet married. Ahhh, you can see where I’m going with this now…
By that time, the Browns were already long gone – what’s the point of even having a team if Nick and Megan aren’t going to stay together?
The 2000s came and went, and we had a flash in the pan with Lebron James version 1.0, but the spark was just never there. Not coincidentally, Nick and Megan weren’t even both in the state! Hell, Megan was even living in San Antonio at the time, so of course the Spurs beat the Cavs in 2007!
But then one day in 2013, Nick called me up, so excited, and I’ve NEVER heard him in such a great mood. He said to me, “Mike, I’m in love. Megan and I are back together, and this time, it’s for real – I know it.”
So I called my friend Lebron up, and said “Yo LBJ, the band’s gettin’ back together! Nick and Megan are back on – time to come home to Cleveland!”
Shortly after, Lebron published his famous article titled “I’m coming home”. And since then, these two have been back on absolute fire. Megan’s career is going phenomenally well, you can’t even keep track of all of Nick’s promotions, and even little Brayden is doing great… although I hear he’s quite the social butterfly — I wonder where he got that from!! (*looks at Megan*)
But you know the drill. Still no championship. Close calls, but the curse is still alive. Still no ring…. that is, until today!
So I’d like to propose this toast, to the greatest romantic comeback in Cleveland’s history, here to fuel the greatest comeback in sports history. And now let us salute to the absolute fact that things go better with Nick and Megan together. Thank you!
As you can imagine, my phone was ringing off the hook after the Cavs completed the comeback and brought a championship to Cleveland. Thank you Nick and Megan for making it happen!
…and now it’s 2017, and here we are again!
Go Cavs!
By Berto June 1, 2017 - 5:10 pm
A few personal comments on this speech:
This was a slightly-risky speech to give, and I wasn’t 100% sure I should give it. I’m of course glad I did.
First off, I was wasting precious words on *sports teams* that could have been better used on the newlyweds. Second, I was throwing quite a few chips on that table, and it could have backfired 24 hours later spectacularly. (But it didn’t!)
If anyone’s stumbled onto this page looking for an example best man speech, I probably don’t recommend talking about sports. But realize that this was Cleveland in *2016* (where our upcoming World Series was even crazier than the 1997 one I mentioned in the speech!) and this was the absolute talk of the town. So why not?
I see the world from a different angle than most, and love catching crazy coincidences. So if you can look at the situation from outside of the box and build a story and timeline that involves the couple, then I say go for it.
Hope you enjoyed. Go Cavs!