Day 10.201 I Am a Rock

I wish I could come to grips with this.

Maybe it is too deeply physiological for me too understand, an agnosticical anomaly or some such alliterative admission of angst.

Why is it that when MY college football team loses, I am a wreck, but when OUR professional team loses, I kinda snicker at all the bandwagon losers. To be transparent, the college team and I have about thirty years of history and have been pretty lousy of late, losing as much as winning on a fairly consistent regularity, while the pro team has been in the last two Super Bowls, even winning one of them.

When my college team - made up of what the head coach has (rightfully) called the dumbest demographic in the world drops a game (as they did last night) I want to break things. But when the Pro team, rostered by millionaires culled from universities acting as farm teams, loses, I kinda chuckle and go about my business with a smug and cavalier nonchalantness that borders on scorn.

What gives?

I don't have the same attitude with, say, triathlon, where the Pros race shoulder to shoulder with the age-groupers. I have nothing but respect and pride with the dichotomy of the mix. The champions get a ton of dough, mostly from endorsements, and the other 99% get fleeced for outrageous entry fees. So what gives?

Perhaps my time investment is askew, creating a false importance born of my own devise. I follow this team. I mean FOLLOW. The fourth site I visit every morning is a fan page forum, this after NPR, Slate and the Seattle Times. Alright there is Gmail and Facebook in the mix as well, but you get the idea.

Paul Simon nailed it in I am A Rock with "If I never loved I never would have cried". That pretty well sums it up I guess. It is true.

I suppose I should be used to it by now. But I am not.

Love hurts. I love this team, its predecessors and the kids currently being recruited to come here and try to change things.

Maybe there is some strength building inside us as a result of all the losses, all the hurts, all the disappointment. We have spoken of this before. It hasn't killed us yet.

We are stronger. And an island never cries.