Mountains and Valleys

For a college football fan, there is nothing better than a win and nothing worse than a loss. After a big win you become convinced your team can run the table and that the gameday crew is going to give you lots of props. But after a loss, it's time to fire the coach. Within a matter of 7 days, you can go from a total high to rock bottom.

An opening season loss (like the one I went through with Tennessee) is about the most dissapointing thing for a fan. All those hours of internet page reading, research, catching the daily radio programs, following ESPN hoping they mention your teams name, spending more money than you should on pre-season magazines..all of it feels in vain, like a complete waist. You just want the season to be over, imagining none of this ever happened. Fire the coach...our players suck....is there any NFL team I can cheer for......where is the jack daniels?.......bring on basketball. The pessimism is exagerrated to the umpth degree. You wonder if your team can beat anybody. You can't turn on your computer, have no desire to watch ESPN, and avoid talk radio like the plague...in fact you pop in a CD you find in your glove-compartment to get your mind off of football. NCAA 2008 on X-box or playstation is out of the question. A round of golf sounds really good about now. It's usually thursday or friday before you can even check espn.com again.

But......

A win the next week (like Tennessee did saturday) turns everything around. The optimism returns. The desire to read EVERY POSSIBLE message board and remotely related football page returns. Phone calls go out left and right, in fact you even 'call in' to your favorite radio program to give your two cents on a never-ending pointless conversation. Why in the crap does ESPN not have the highlights of our game in the little video box? If you taped the game, you re-watch it 3-4 times during the week. Their is enormous excitement for the next game, probably too much. You smile at more people, treat your wife a bit better, tip your waitress an extra dollar or two. The air smells better, it seems like you find parking meters with 30-45 minutes still on them.

The point is that it is certainly exagerrated. Some fans (Georgia, Auburn, Ole Miss) are now in the dumps, experiencing solid first week wins and then frustrating 2nd week losses. Cheer up, a lot of football left to play. By wednesday or thursday it'll be ok, you'll start reading web pages and stuff again. What makes it soo good is not how awesome it feels to win, but how pissed you get when you lose.

So drink your sorrows away, make your nasty phone calls, write your mean emails, or boycott....but come thursday or friday, get on the wagon again. It's football season, get into it. There is no greater hobby for a man.