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. ;)

***

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.

***

O-H No!

Saturday, November 10th was a bitter sweet day for me.

At about 11PM, The Fighting Illini were dancing at midfield in the Horseshoe - and dancing on the grave of our fallen hopes of an undefeated Big Ten season. Try as they might, OSU's offensive efforts could not make much headway against linebacker J Leman and the rest of his "pack of hyenas".

It's never easy to watch your beloved, hometown team lose (never mind losing at home), when you are as emotionally invested in the Buckeyes as I am. Even if the loss is expected, the sting is the same. Watching the University of Illinois players jump for joy at our expense was deflating.


My sports-induced depression lasted for about 30 hours.

I bounced back, however, when Ohio State dropped to 7th in the BCS standings. Relieved? Yep, you read that right. Shocked? Well, Let me explain.

Unlike throngs of card-carrying members of Buckeye Nation, I'm not bewitched. I have not fallen under the spell of Beanie Wells, Todd Boeckman, and Brian Robiskie. While I watched every game this year rooting for my brothers in Scarlet and Gray, I viewed them with a certain amount of suspicion. They were outplaying their pre-season expectations but their opponents were sorrowfully over matched. Love them as I do, the latest version of "Woody's Warriors" would be embarrassed yet again if they went to New Orleans to play on January 7th. [For more on the Buckeyes' stance across the national landscape I direct you to my previous post]

So on November 11th when OSU fell from #1 to #7, I breathed my first unrestricted breath since mid-October. Gone was the pressure of living up to higher than reasonable expectations for this still untested OSU squad. That target on their backs; gone! Now the focus could shift from the Crystal Football to the Big House and L-l-l-l-l-oyd Carr's Michigan Wolverines.

And "L" they did. Chris Wells had 222 rushing yards - the most of any Ohio State back in the history of The Game - and led his team out of Ann Arbor with a soggy and sloppy 14-3 win. Winning the Big Ten conference title and climbing slightly in the BCS to 5th, it was highly unlikely that OSU was going anywhere except Pasadena and the Rose Bowl to face USC...just like old times. We were safe from national championship shame!

My solace didn't last.

From November 17th to December 1, the four other teams who stood between Columbus and the Big Easy lost - most notably #1 Missouri lost to Oklahoma and #2 West Virginia did the unthinkable and laid an egg AT HOME to 4-7 Pittsburgh on the same night.

I nearly fainted.

Thanks to the inability of four other teams to get the job done, Ohio State jumped from #5 to #1 and backed into the National Championship game by doing nothing more than watching TV. Now, they find themselves doing battle against SEC champions LSU to play for the AllState National Championship...and I'm conflicted.

On one hand, my team has won 11 of its 12 games this season. It played for and won its conference championship. They played and defeated four BCS ranked teams, including going to Happy Valley at night to play Penn State. They have Jim Tressel as their coach. Six other teams failed to bolster their case for New Orleans by losing when it counted most. And they have 41-14 as motivation to get the job done this time around (During the summer leading up to this year, Jim Tressel changed the code to the weight room to "41-14" so his players wouldn't forget why they were putting in the long hours in the off season).

...and yet...

The Big Ten is, at best, the fourth best conference in college football this year. OSU played three in-state cupcakes during their non-conference schedule. They were given the #1 ranking when the BCS first came out on legacy alone which put them in a position to remain competitive. The only true test they faced beat them at home by a touchdown. They are not the best or second-best team in the country...more like 8th or 9th.

I don't know.

When the Buckeyes take the field on January 7th and I root my heart out all the way down to the final play, will I still be able to look myself in the mirror the next morning, win or lose, and know that I was acting in reality?

Why couldn't we have dropped further after November 10?