Learning to Cope

After a good night’s sleep and some deep over-analytical thinking I was nearly over the basketball game where my Buckeyes were again defeated in a Bitch-Slapping manner by the Florida Gators in a national championship contest. After all, they simply did not deserve to win. There is some solace in going out big, as well. I mean 2 for 21 from the 3-point line (I’m not counting the two 3s in garbage time) is every bit as tantamountly abysmal as a Heisman-winning quarterback going 4 for 14 and turning it over twice inside the 10 yard line. In Buckeye land we don’t just lose, we blow it like no one else has ever blown it before.

It’s also comforting to know that history won’t remember these kinds of games. History remembers Georgetown losing to a backbreaking last second shot by a guy named Jordan. History remembers NC State catching a desperate air-ball and dunking it to beat Clyde Drexler and Hakeem Olujuwan’s Houston team. At least I won’t be seeing a replay of that caliber for the next 50 years. History won’t care to recall the lovely tudor style, cul-de-sac home built by the bricks tossed up by Ivan Harris, Ron Lewis, and Jamar Butler. History will forget this game, and I should too.

I nearly choked on my enlightened sigh of relief when a strange thought came over me. This was technically a great year for Ohio State University Athletics. The football team had an undefeated regular season, defeated Michigan in what was one of the most highly anticipated games in the history of sports and produced a classy-cool Heisman winner. The basketball team landed a 7-foot phenom and his lightning quick sidekick, won the big ten, produced an All-American, and hit some dramatic shots to advance all the way to the NCAA championship. That’s an incredible year, but I can’t help but feel like this will go down as the worst year ever for OSU sports. That’s right, we finish #2 in both major sports and it’s the most heart-breaking year ever for buckeye fans everywhere. Why? Because we lost both games to the same team! Being number 2 is one thing, but losing to the same school is just gut wrenching. As awesome as this year was, it will be forgotten because of the uber-awesome year Florida has had. It is moot, meaningless, arbitrary. A negligible footnote. A future jeopardy question that no geeks will be able to answer.

I’m thinking there has to be a 12-step program for this, and the first step must be admitting that I am powerless over a 20-year-old kid’s ability to knock down a 21-foot jump shot. I cannot get beyond that step though. It must surely be easier to kick a crack habit than it is to stop feeling torturous pain every time the buckeyes make it so teasingly close to the pinnacle of greatness, only to be obliterated in their final challenge.

Maybe this is the way it has to be for Ohioans. To lose twice to the citrus capital of the world is a cruel and ironic tragedy of Shakespearian proportions. Just look at our climate: An inspiring fall that segues into a melancholy winter, which takes far too long to blossom into a far too short spring. That’s the way it is. Only so much joy for us. Not too much, not too little. It adds perspective and appreciation. Those are good things. After all, great men and women have come from Ohio. Great fruit has come from Florida. There is some solace in that. Not much, but some.

In the end this is probably my fault. My close friends probably remember that after the Buckeyes won the 2002 BCS Championship I rewarded them with a vow to cease all complaining about sports for 5 years. Well, this was the fifth season of that agreement and the sons-a-bitches broke me. Is this proof of a higher power? Another example of my incredibly bad luck? Or maybe just more evidence that I take this stuff far too seriously?
By the way. A workmate just walked into my office and told me he helped the local college with an engineering competition that took place last week. Ohio State came in second. Florida came in first. My tenuous grip on sanity is quickly losing its hold.