I know that a large number of excellent bloggers call the marvelous city of Austin, Texas, home. I like Austin. My wife likes Austin. But we aren't at all happy about the outcome of last night's football game.
We had decent seats at the Rose Bowl last night, surrounded mostly by USC fans but with a fair number of Longhorn rooters scattered around us. We witnessed a thrilling game in an extraordinarily electric atmosphere. I've been to a great many college football games in my day, including past Rose Bowl games, but I've never experienced anything like the energy and excitement of last night's national championship.
As is now widely known, Texas beat USC on a last-minute touchdown, 41-38. The Longhorns deserved the victory, but my wife was heartbroken. I grew up in Northern California with a healthy disdain for all things Los Angeles; in my years at Cal, I developed an intense loathing of USC. But last night, I stood alongside my Trojan spouse, sang "Fight On", and waved a red and gold pom-pom with genuine enthusiasm. I may have been the only one in the stadium with a Cal BA and a UCLA Ph.D to do so, but I did it shamelessly. (I regularly wear a Trojan cap.) And I did it for love.
Did I really want USC to win? Yes, but not out of any personal tie to that university. What makes me happy is to see my wife happy, and USC victories make her happy. What upsets me is to see her gutted by a loss, and last night's defeat was a painful one indeed. Fortunately, as of this morning, her sadness has turned to a vigorous anger, and she thunderously critiqued many of last night's key coaching decisions over morning coffee and chinchilla play time. Such is the nature of sports, and my wife (an athlete from her early childhood) understands that agonizing defeat is part and parcel of what it means to love games. Still, I do hate seeing her disappointed.
May I add that the Longhorn fans were gracious winners,and that I saw nothing but civil exchanges between Texas and USC partisans at the Rose Bowl last night. Perhaps it was because most folks there had paid too much for their tickets to risk being thrown out, but the general level of self-control was very high and quite commendable.
I'm a Longhorn who celebrated the 1969 national championship along with all the other frats, jocks, rednecks, hippies, and campus activists who caught the football fever. SC quarterback Matt Leinert made an annoying comment after the game to the effect that the Trojans were the better team despite the loss. Somebody should teach that boy a little bit of manners and humility. SC played a great offensive game, and impressed everybody with the quality of the line play and blocking. But they clearly aren't the better team, and Bush is clearly not a more deserving Heisman candidate than the Great Vince Young.
The main thing about sports is to realize that both victory and defeat are short-lived, so we shouldn't get attached to either. This is harder for women to achieve than for men.
Posted by: Richard Bennett | January 05, 2006 at 12:54 PM
Richard, I read your first sentence, and your last two, with bemusement...
Posted by: Hugo | January 05, 2006 at 01:01 PM
The celebration after the 1969/70 national championship was epic. Some of my hippie friends watched the game in a bar while tripping on LSD, and celebrated afterwards after drinking gallons of beer. It was a truly cross-cultural reconciliation event. Of course, football is the state religion on Texas, and that probably helped.
Posted by: Richard Bennett | January 05, 2006 at 03:27 PM
Hugo, didn't you once say something to the effect of wishing upon USC devastating losses accompanied by serious and demoralizing injuries? If you can go from that place to cheering them, then it must be true love!
For myself, I was delighted with the result. All of the absurd talk about "the best team ever" was kind of sickening after a while - especially when the team hadn't even proven themselves to be the best this season. Trojan fans have had a nice run, with plenty of warm-fuzzies over the past three years, and Texas has waited 35 years for this. So - this Sooner born, Sooner bred college football fan says: HOOK 'EM HORNS!! (Avenging last year's loss and protecting OU's record 47-game winning streak was also good!)
Richard - In my experience, gender has nothing at all to do with the ability to keep winning and losing in perspective. It has A LOT to do with the level of passion for the sport and for one's team, degree of competitiveness, and other factors. And I have seen more exaggerated behavior from male fans of losing teams than from female fans - by a long shot. Having said that, let me also say, "Congrats, bro!"
Posted by: stanton | January 05, 2006 at 03:58 PM
It's been my experience that women are more likely than men to seek revenge and retribution than men, as we seem to have the ability to take ups and downs in stride. I suspect that there are chemical differences that make male emotions peak higher and end sooner (pardon the expression) than female emotions. I don't know if this can be studied, because it's not politically correct to think about such things.
Vince Young is reminiscent of J. C. Watts, ain't he?
Posted by: Richard Bennett | January 05, 2006 at 04:26 PM
J.C. Watts? As far as his running ability, shiftiness, and leadership, I guess he is. Watts had that same determination to do what it takes to win, but he didn't have the passing arm that Vince has. For our sake, I sure am hoping that he goes pro this year!
Posted by: stanton | January 05, 2006 at 09:37 PM
Football leaves me cold. My only interest in Bowl games is in seeing the bands play. USC was unimpressive, as usual.
Posted by: LAmom | January 06, 2006 at 10:57 AM
as we seem to have the ability to take ups and downs in stride.
About sports??? Women get more worked up about their favorite sports team losing than men????
Um, OK. Whatever.
Posted by: Lynn Gazis-Sax | January 06, 2006 at 09:09 PM