When I married my wife, a California girl, in 2005 and she moved to Ohio I had to explain a few things to her.
Already a big a football fan she quickly noticed that things were a little different here than where she is from, such as Ohio State football. I told her “it’s not like life and death, it is more important than that.”
I think she has been a rather good influence on Ohio State. We have only lost once to Michigan since we were married and that was two years ago in a year in which the NCAA imposed penalties on the program.
She also noted that anytime Ohio State loses, such as was the case last Saturday, the whole state, at least the Mansfield area, is in a state or mourning. Things just seem to be more quiet than normal. People just shake their heads and wonder how that could even happen.
What do we do as fans to deal with a loss like the one in the Big Ten Championship game?
First I think it is so difficult for fans because we are powerless to affect the outcome of the game. That is the case no matter what the match-up, Mansfield Senior vs. Madison, Clear Fork vs. Lexington, Shelby vs. Willard, in football or basketball or whatever the sport.
No matter how much you root, no matter how many times you shout “O-H” and expect an “I-O” to be returned, it isn’t going to make the defense play any better and that’s what is so frustrating.
As a sports fan, I have many choices, so my first thought is to move on to the next event, which in my case would have been the Browns game with the New England Patriots on Sunday. Well, scratch that.
Some people rehash the game over and over in their minds. We would have beaten Mansfield Senior if…. or had the ref not made this call then things would have went our way and the Minutemen would have won.
I can do that in a regular season game I guess, but not in the high school football playoffs or in a basketball tournament game or in the Big Ten championship.
My best advice to you is to file it and forget it. What I did late Saturday night or early Sunday morning was to rant and rave about how I hate Mark May, hate the SEC, and on and on for about 15 minutes and then frankly I have not thought about it since and don’t plan too.
When the Orange Bowl comes up I will get excited again, but until that time I can spend my time in much more productive ways.
Maybe it’s my defeatist attitude when it comes to the Browns, but I was sitting in my office on Sunday watching the game with the Browns leading 19-3. New England scores and I think “… here we go.” I turned the TV off and went outside and did some skiing, so I missed that debacle all together.
Okay, even when I was outside, I said “I can’t stand Tom Brady or his coach” in slightly more colorful terms.
After years of toil and sweat behind radio station microphones, longtime broadcaster, Jeff Swank joined the new generation of sports followers on the web.
Swank launched his internet radio station with nothing more than some wire, a box with some knobs and switches, and an itch to do much more than just scratch the surface of everything sports.
Richland Source is proud to introduce Jeff as a writer focused on high school sports. He will contribute a weekly column and analysis of a featured game of the week from one of our area high schools.
In addition to his work at Richland Source, Jeff provides complete high school sports coverage for over 70 Ohio schools at his web site, http://www.swankonsports.net76.net/.
