To say that I was less than impressed with many of the ads featured during Sunday’s Superbowl matchup between the Seattle Seahawks and the New England Patriots would be a gross understatement.

But there was one ad that stuck out as especially insipid, defying common sense and serving only to bolster one of our nation’s biggest challenges.

No, I’m not talking about polar bars discovering that they actually prefer Pepsi over Coke.

I’m talking about a rambling 30-second public service announcement that was brought to us by none other than the NFL.

The You Are Special ad was unapologetically lifted right from the lips of the Mr. Rogers’ television show and featured Michael Strahan and Christian McCaffrey singing the silly song and deluding the minds of millions of American children.

Although intended to be a warm and fuzzy reminder that we should always promote “unity and community,” the ad supports the feel-good notion from the NFL’s Inspire Change Program that “everyone is special.”

The irony of people — who make millions and millions of dollars by throwing and catching a leather ball — telling the rest of us that “we’re all special” is almost too much for my diseased brain to handle. I honestly thought I was going to have a stroke.

According to my leather-bound dictionary from Brown University, the word “special” is defined as follows: “distinguished by some unusual quality.”

Unusual quality. Think about that for a moment.

If we’re all special – as the NFL tells us – then none of us are special. You simply cannot be special if there is nothing unusual about you, nothing that sets you apart from the masses.

And that’s okay. Pull the shotgun out of your mouth. The world needs average, ordinary people like you and me.

We have a whole generation of entitled brats each believing that they are special simply because they have mastered the art of inhaling and exhaling.

Let me put this another way.

I made a point of mentioning that my dictionary is from Brown University. No, I didn’t attend or graduate from Brown. In fact, I dropped out of both the University of Southern Maine and Boston University in less than 90 days.

I doubled-down on my academic accomplishments by then enrolling in and also quickly dropping out of the Sacred Heart School of Theology in Wisconsin.

Bown University is special, especially when compared to a school like USM. People are willing to pay a lot more to attend Brown than USM. Both schools are not equal.

In fact, I’m almost positive that the University of Southern Maine doesn’t publish its own leather-bound dictionary with gold-leaf pages. Maybe they have something available online. I don’t know.

Let me be perfectly clear. There is nothing wrong with the University of Southern Maine. I wish I had graduated from USM. I really regret never getting an undergraduate degree.

A lot of very good and smart people graduated from USM. But I’ll bet dollars to doughnuts that most of those students would have gladly accepted a transfer to Brown, Bowdoin, Dartmouth or Harvard.

There is special. And there is ordinary. We should all learn the difference.

As I said, the world needs ordinary people; people who aspire to do special things. Doing something special requires hard work, commitment and practice.

Ordinary people can – and often – do special, extraordinary things. But we’re not all special. Special is not a birthright. It’s something you have to work for.

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