The Sun Also Rises - A Football Edition

“You're an expatriate. You've lost touch with the soil. You get precious. Fake European standards have ruined you. You drink yourself to death. You become obsessed with sex. You spend all your time talking, not working. You are an expatriate, see? You hang around cafes.”

This morning yet another day is upon us. No cataclysmic refusal of a sun to rise, no ridicule followed the performance of young men in a game to my own personal nightmares. I am reminded that we are fans. Nothing more and nothing less.

Fans are a very important piece to the puzzle that is college athletics. There is a sort of tribal or territorial pride involved. We spend our money, we cheer, we revel in victory and agonize in defeat. But too often we put ourselves ahead of the truth - that which is most important. The players and coaches care more than do the fans. When we got up this morning, our future was not dependent upon the outcome of last night's game. Some of us will work today, most of us tomorrow.

But there are 11 full time coaches and 85 scholarship football players who are more distraught over the performance last night. They fought with their blood, sweat and tears to bring fans a moment of perceived joy, glory, happiness, which ever adjective best describes why we revel in victory. Rodney Hardrick has had eight major surgeries during his football career and faces a ninth this off-season. He is college football.

What is often lost after such a devastating defeat on the field is that wins and losses are only a small piece of the puzzle. Every year 25 or so young men arrive on a college campus having not really known what it is like to be an adult. Coaches take these young men and attempt to develop them into men who will bring positive to the world. The young men, while spending 20 hours per week in football related activities, also attend college full time attempting to not only develop into men of character, but educated men of character.

This, you see, is the primary objective of college football. Education. Character. Of course, coaches are measured by more than just graduation rates and character development. Wins matter. But as we wake up this morning, we have become Hemingway's expatriates.

“You're a fan. You've lost touch with the soil. You get precious. Fake SEC standards have ruined you. You drink yourself to death. You become obsessed with winning. You spend all your time talking, not working. You are a college football fan, see? You hang around message boards.”

These moments should be what they are for us. We are fans and we will feel upset, betrayed almost, when the team for whom we cheer somehow lets us down. But I can guarantee you that the players and coaches are considerably more ruminative about their troubles in San Antonio than any of us could hope to be.

I woke up today to snow. I hate snow. But my dog ran and played in the stuff and that brought joy to my wife and, consequently, myself. It is just a game. A game played by young men. At the end of the day, it was great joy to watch this season unfold at times, and painful at others.

My pain, though, is temporary. There is another season to come. A season which will begin with the same hope as all seasons.

Go Ducks.