It hasn’t always been easy being an Atlanta Falcons fan.

Sure, with a victory today, the Falcons will go to the Super Bowl for only the second time in team history.

But it surely wasn’t always this way. For much of this franchise’s storied history, the team was, shall we politely say, victory challenged.

This year’s team has won 14 games. The team was playing its fifth season — in 1970 — before it tallied 14 total victories.

The Falcons didn’t have a winning season until they went 9-5 in 1973. They didn’t make the playoffs for the first time until 1978, which was the team’s second-ever winning season.

The Falcons have won five or fewer games in 19 of the 47 years the team has been in existence.

Even the great Super Bowl team of 1998 is tempered by the fact that the Falcons went 7-9 the year before and 5-11 the year after.

We shouldn’t have been surprised at the team’s futility.

In 1966, the Falcons played their first game in Atlanta-Fulton County Stadium, an exhibition against the Philadelphia Eagles. The Falcons were to kick off. The referee blew the whistle. The kicker, a fellow named Wade Thompson, approached the ball.

He whiffed it.

As a child, though, I loved the Falcons. But the Falcons were never in the playoffs, so I became fans of other teams, the Buffalo Bills and O.J. Simpson — hey, I was young and naive — and the Miami Dolphins.

As an adult, I solidified my love for the Falcons. After all, they are the home team. But you often admitted you were a Falcons fan in the same hushed tones you might use to admit that you had a cousin who was in jail for robbing a convenience store or you had an uncle that once voted Democratic.

Sunday afternoon Falcons games were often a good excuse for a nap. Why not? The team often seemed to be sleeping through the game, too.

Those days, thankfully, seem to be over. Falcons fans at last can hold their heads high. The Smith family sold the team to Arthur Blank, who, with the exception of a couple of missteps filed under “Vick, Michael” and “Petrino, Bobby,” has turned the franchise into a winner.

Blank hired a great coach in Mike Smith. He filled the front office with smart, football-minded people. Together, they brought in great players like Matt Ryan, Michael Turner, Roddy White and Tony Gonzalez. God bless Tony Gonzalez.

In only his second season as coach, Smith pulled off a feat that had never been done in Atlanta. He had back-to-back winning seasons.

And now, in just his fifth season, he has the team on the precipice of ultimate success in the NFL. Today, the Falcons play the San Francisco 49ers in the NFC Championship Game, only the third time the Falcons have ever made it this far.

These are giddy times for the fans who were around for all those 4-12 years.

In 1998, when Morten Andersen made the field goal in Minnesota that put the Falcons in the Super Bowl, a group of us from Macon decided to drive up to the team’s headquarters, then in Suwanee, to meet the team when it returned from Minneapolis. We were not alone. There were hundreds of fans there.

At the time, we all figured the Falcons might never again grace a Super Bowl, and we wanted to be a part of it.

They have a big challenge today. The 49ers are a strong football team. I keep telling myself that, even if the Falcons lose, it’s been a great season with the promise of many great seasons ahead.

I’m proud to call myself a Falcons fan. But, dang it, I want to win. I want to see the Falcons in the Super Bowl, and I want them to win it.

Rise up, indeed.

Mitch Clarke is executive editor of The Times. His column appears Sundays. Read previous columns at gainesvilletimes.com/mitch.