Ralph Wilson does not know Chuck Jones. But somebody ought to introduce them. The Buffalo Bills’ owner vows to resuscitate his long-decrepit team, a team that for better or worse carries our communal identity. Should he have second thoughts about the price of a serious coach and top front-office talent, Wilson can buck himself up by thinking about Chuck Jones—and the tens of thousands of people like him.

It will help Wilson to keep his promise to pull the Bills out of the quicksand. It will remind him of the pain felt by people who emotionally invest in this team. It will recall the bottomless well of hope that for a decade has gone unrewarded.

Ralph, meet Chuck.

Chuck Jones runs the fitness center at ECC’s downtown campus. The former high school nose tackle (Hutch Tech, ’87) combines the bulk of a lineman with the soft heart of a social worker. I know him because I work out there. Week after week, I see the price Chuck Jones pays for unwavering, unending, unshakeable loyalty to the Bills.

The man gets dogged.

Chuck’s infatuation began when an uncle took the then-9-year-old to his first game. Even though the Bills lost, Chuck was in.

“How can you live in Buffalo and not like the Bills?” he asked me the other day, in the workout room. “It’s like a marriage, except there ain’t no divorce . . . When they’re losing, that’s when they need you.”

He is one man, one name, one story. But there are tens of thousands of others who share the faith, who show up on any given Sunday, who endure the punishment that comes with rooting for a perennially lousy team.

The workout room is populated mostly with regulars who, somewhere on the long road of mediocrity, abandoned the Bills. They decided—and, frankly, I cannot blame them—that rooting for the Bills is an exercise in self-abuse. They grew weary of getting disgusted every Sunday afternoon. After years of little returns, they stopped making emotional investments.

Chuck’s primary tormenter, Nate, years ago switched allegiance to the Patriots. Brian backs the Cowboys. Will-I, a massive block of a man, turned away after placing large bets on four straight Super Bowl losers.

Chuck remained faithful. Every Friday, he—no matter how humiliating the last defeat, no matter how tough the next opponent—comes to work wearing his Bills hat and oversized No. 23 Marshawn Lynch jersey. He then renews his weekly bet with Nate. If the Bills win, Nate owes Chuck a Gatorade. If the Patriots win, Chuck owes Nate a Gatorade. If they both win or lose, it is a wash. When the teams play each other, the bet doubles.

Suffice to say that Nate has consumed a lot of Gatorade.

OK, it is not a hefty wager. Until you consider that riding on the outcome is a week’s worth of pride, bragging rights and—usually, for Chuck—a heaping helping of verbal abuse.

Nate could go word-for-word with the Rev. Al Sharpton and is as merciless as a cobra. He rags on Chuck the way a lineman pounds a Bills quarterback:

“I know excellence when I see it. When I look at the Bills, I don’t see it.”

“New coach, new quarterback, it makes no difference. They still lose. They always lose.”

“The loyalty I have is to common sense. Common sense tells me not to root for the Bills.”

And on. And on.

Chuck will be at the game today. He will be sitting in Section 116, wearing his Bills hat and No. 23 jersey. Loyalty has come at a large price, and I am not just talking about the Gatorade.

I just wanted Ralph Wilson to know. Chuck is watching. And waiting. Waiting for the sort of team he—and thousands like him—deserve.