The Sting WILL Fade

It feels good to be back on a regular schedule after working like a dog through most of December. Now that things have slowed down and I have a bunch of comp time to burn, I'll be writing more regularly on here.

The following is an article that I just submitted on our station's blog site. It is written for an audience that is rich in Buckeye fans so please keep that in mind. I am not suggesting that everyone who may read this is a Buckeyes fan. ;)

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You may have thrown your hands up in disgust. It is entirely possible that a TV remote control took off from the vicinity of your couch and landed with a hard smack on the kitchen floor. If you are like me you said something to the effect of, “Why do I even bother”. One way or another you made your disapproval known after Ohio State’s crushing loss to LSU in this year’s BCS National Championship game.

Join the club.

When you are as emotionally invested in your favorite team as I am, you can’t help but feel the pain of a loss right along side the players. Not feel for the players…feel the pain with the players. When they lose a tough one you go along for the ride. There is a whimsical and fascinating connection that exists between team and fan. A win is the shear definition of exhilaration and a loss, unfortunately, is utter devastation.

Such was my mood driving home that night after the game in New Orleans. The funk of defeat hung over me like a tormenting fog. The only sounds in the car were the faint mutterings of two late-night ESPN radio jocks, the rhythmic staccato of a wind-driven rain pounding the windshield, the screeching of the windshield wipers dragging across the glass, and an occasional heavy-laden breath…my own. Sigh.

My face: expressionless. My joy: replaced. Visions of leaping Tigers and yellow and purple confetti precipitating from the heavens were dancing in my head. Memories of gloved hands thrusting a crystal football to the sky were playing so vividly in my brain. Alas, those hands were not that of Buckeyes.

It is to weep!

An ever-spreading case of sports depression continued to overwhelm me as I arrived home. Try as it might, the familiar warmth of domestic tranquility could not lift me from my lowly state. In the corner of the family room sat my stuffed “Brutus the Buckeye”. I’ll never forget his face when his telepathic greeting of “O-H” went unanswered as I drudged to the foyer closet to hang up my raincoat (which had become completely saturated in the time it took me to walk from the car to the front door). I felt that nothing would lighten my mood.

I was wrong.

As had been my routine since Christmas, I grabbed my copy of, Then Tress Said to Troy to read a chapter before bed. Having brushed my teeth and accomplished all other pre-sandman tasks, I opened to the night’s scheduled passage. I began reading the exploits of great OSU pigskin soldiers like Chic Harley, Rex Kern, and Howard “Hopalong” Cassady. Past players recounted tales of Buckeye coaches like Paul Brown, Earl Bruce, Woody Hayes, and yes, Jim Tressel. I slowly poured over highlights of Woody and Bo’s Ten Year War and that of Jim Tressel’s success in navigating through Michigan again and again and again and again and…well you get the point.

Then it dawned on me. Sure, the loss to LSU stings right now but it does not define the entirety of a football program that is one-hundred eighteen years in the making. These last two national championship defeats are two paragraphs on a single page in the vast encyclopedia that is Ohio State football history. The storied tradition of the school that rest on the banks of the Olentangy River has recorded down times like this before but it will live to tell a brighter tale another day!

Suddenly, I felt myself brake free from the darkness holding me captive. The depression began to lift and my heart cast its burden. I smiled, briefly. Then I closed the book, turned off the bed-side lamp, and fell asleep.

Sure Ohio State will have to walk the streets of college football for another year sporting a black-eye but just as sure as Troy Smith’s record against that school up north; the Buckeyes will achieve glory once again.

Just give it some time.

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