I Got the Blues

There is a scene in the movie “Brokeback Mountain” when Jake Gyllenhaal says to Heath Ledger, “I wish I knew how to quit you.”  Every fall, I think about that quote as I start to watch college football; more specifically- Michigan Football.

For as long as I can remember, I have been a Michigan Football fan.  My oldest sister is 10 years older and went to U of M when I was in 2nd grade, which was only about 45 minutes away from our house.  She took my sister and I to a game a few years later and going to the Big House was one of the coolest experiences of my entire life.  From that point on, I was hooked.  And what wasn’t to love?  The Maize and Blue uniforms, The largest stadium in the US, the winningest team in college football history during a time where we were actually winning too!  It was the late nineties and Michigan Football was a dominating team.

If only we could go back to that time.  That precious time.  If only we knew what the future would hold…

In my adult lifetime, I saw the rise but mostly fall of Lloyd Carr, the flash in the pan that was Richard Rodriguez, one great year of Brady Hoke and the downward spiral that followed, and now, Jim Harbaugh.  Jim F@#!ing Harbaugh.  I have been cautiously optimistic since that late December press conference when he walked out onto that basketball court to confirm the worst kept secret in college sports.  “He’s coming home, you guys,” we said to one another.  “He’s just coming home.”

But this post isn’t about Jim Harbaugh, or even Michigan Football.  It’s about the agony and the ecstasy of watching sports.  I’ve experienced both, though the latter seems harder and harder to find.  And yesterday, it was all agony.  I can’t even bring myself to talk about it, but you can click here to find out what happened.

I can’t even watch the link I just posted.  I can’t even read stories about it.  Someone sent me a video of a man crying and throwing up after the game.  I couldn’t even watch that.  It might as well have been my brother, since he did throw up (and that’s a true story).  I could barely carry on solid conversations after I saw that happen.  I would be midway into listening to someone and my mind would just drift away to those last seconds.  Those last, terrible, oh-my-god-is-this-really-happening seconds have haunted my dreams.  I am not being hyperbolic.  I had the worst night sleep last night.  I woke up anxious and unsettled and then I would remember why.  We lost. We lost in the last second of the game.  A game that we were winning the entire time except for the last second when we lost.  “Get it together, ok? Just calm down and think happy thoughts,” I told myself as I sat wide awake at 2am.  “There are other things going on in the world far more important than this.  You have nothing to do with this!  You don’t even know these people!” It didn’t matter what I told myself.  There was no erasing the memory from my mind.  It just hit so hard.

The kind of loss that Michigan endured might end up being known as the worst one in history, and that is saying something, because there have been many terrible losses (Like Appalachian State, or pretty much every OSU loss, or all the other MSU losses).  But this will likely put us on the reel forever.  As it turns out, we are in good company.  To make myself feel better, I looked up other Devastating Losses in football history (because when you hurt, it helps to watch others hurt more).  I couldn’t believe how selfish I was being.  I live in Texas!  I am literally surrounded by fans who feel the same way!  They actually felt the exact same way in 2008 when they played Texas Tech and they also lost in the last seconds of the game.  And not too far from here is Alabama and I think we all remember when this happened. (Is it just me, or do the announcers really have a knack at rubbing it in to the losing team?  I get the excitement, but there are people grieving here!)

Sometimes, you can’t help who you love.  Fandom chooses you, not the other way around.  Every year I watch Michigan, I swear it will be my last.  I’m a wife and mom now. I don’t have time for these football shenanigans.  But for every year I try to walk away, something keeps pulling me back.  Maybe it’s the chance to be on the receiving end of good fortune; to be there when things finally turn around and to witness the ball being picked up by our team for once, instead of watching them drop it one more devastating time.

(Finally, for all of the smug Spartan fans out there, let’s not forget about this. Is it so hard to have a little bit of empathy?)