Sunday night may very well be the most memorable sporting-related night of your college career.

Especially for current Binghamton University seniors, if you’re even remotely a football fan, a New York fan or a fan of goodness and decency, Sunday could be your defining college moment.

Yes, when the New York Football Giants try to knock off the 1980 Russian Olympic team, I mean the New England Patriots, it will mark the first championship game appearance for a New York team in the last four years, the time the average college student spends in Vestal. And, for once in the bipartisan sports world of New York, all denizens of the Empire State can be united under one goal: the desire to see Boston fail and New York once again reclaim the title of ‘The Capital of the World.’

What’s that you say? You’re a Jets fan? A Bills fan? A Cowboys fan? You say you could never root for the Giants?

This isn’t about the Giants. It isn’t even about the Patriots. It’s a tale of two cities, where it has truly been the best of times and the worst of times. It’s about the sleeping dragon that is New York sports, emerging from its hibernation to stop the party in a region where they still refer to themselves as ‘New Englanders.’

Weren’t years of colonial oppression and taxation without representation and the heroics of Ethan Allen and the Green Mountain boys enough to ensure that no part of America would just become a lamer version of England?

When Nathan Hale, right before he was hung by the redcoats, said ‘I only regret that I have but one life to lose for my country,’ do you think he was hoping that someday a team from ‘New England’ would eventually become the greatest in American history?

Binghamton’s class of 2008 can certainly appreciate the gravity of this situation. Think back to freshman year, the first chance at a New York championship in college, to the 2004 American League Champion Series.

After the Yankees won the third game 19-8 it seemed predestined. The Curse of the Bambino would continue, Boston would suffer, as it rightfully deserved to, and we would usher in four years of New York sports dominance.

Everyone knows how that turned out.

What no one realized then was Dave Roberts, Johnny Damon and Curt Schilling’s bloody sock, ruined the college experience for everyone going to college in New York.

The Patriots won. Then the Sawx again. Now the Celtics have been crowned champions, and their season isn’t even over.

Heck, the New England Revolution, of MLS fame, has made three straight MLS Cups, while our beloved Metrostars, err Red Bulls, have become perennial cellar dwellers.

And it’s not just at the professional ranks. During the last three seasons, while BU basketball was led by Mike Gordon, the star of the class of 2008, the Bearcats have been knocked out of the America East tournament by Vermont twice, and by Boston University.

All the while, thanks to choke jobs by the Yankees and Mets and the demise of a certain Manhattan-based NBA team, New York has suddenly taken a back seat to the City on the Hill.

And finally, in the class of 2008’s last chance, the little team that could, did. The team coached by a slightly more frightening version of the Crypt-Keeper. A team that lost the best running back in franchise history to Katie Couric. And a team led by a quarterback, who up until a few weeks ago looked like he’d rather be watching cartoons than playing professional football.

But now they are the only thing standing between Boston and perfection. The New Englanders are in a weird position. Suddenly they are the Yankees. Suddenly New York is the scrappy underdog.

And everyone, especially here at Binghamton, should be pulling for the Giants. Giants fans. Jets fans. Knicks fans. Syracuse fans. Everyone who ever said, ‘I’m a New Yorker,’ or cringed when they were told to ‘Pahk the cah at Hahvad Yahd,’ should be rooting this weekend. For once all people from the Empire State will be united for one cause.

Because after all, we only have but one college career to root for our state.