I've been a Duck fan since the bad old days when three wins was a miracle season, but I've had enough. I watched every second of last Saturday's loss and read 3 papers online afterward, but I can't do it anymore: too many agonizing losses and knucklehead decisions. Fumbles, interceptions, false starts--it was a clinic on how to lose a football game, and they deserved to lose. The team is poorly coached and shows no progress, does things you can't possibly do and hope to win a football game.
This Saturday they play Stanford, and I'm not watching. I'll bike to Wilsonville and take Roger to Taco Del Mar. I'll do my laundry or send out my forwarding address forms. It's not worth the enormous investment of time and energy I've given it weekend after weekend.
I won't choose another team and I won't change my mind. For 37 years I've lived with the disappointment and the excuses, the woulda, coulda, shouldas, and this season I'm putting it away. Except for three glorious seasons when Joey Harrington was the quarterback, and the team showed true heart and won three straight bowl games and got better every season, Duck football has been an ongoing lesson in hype over substance, reputation over results. Our coaches can't pick a quarterback and can't adjust when things go wrong. And things always go wrong.
Maybe I'll go to the movies, or read a book. But I won't have to watch Jaison Williams drop another pass, or the defense give up another first down on third and long. I'll let someone else yell themselves hoarse screaming at the TV. I've got other things to do.
Dad---
ReplyDeleteAh gee, you poor baby, do you want a cookie, or perhaps some cheese with your whine? I can give you a ride on the whabulance??? No sympathy, ah hello Beaver fan, do we ever win?????
Steff--
ReplyDeleteI really wasn't expecting sympathy, or really asking for it. The post was really a reflection on the enormous expense of time and energy I've given to that hobby for a long time, and how much better I might have invested it.
I love Duck football and I have for as long as I've been a football fan, but I'm going to put it away for a while, and see what happens instead.
Dale,
ReplyDeleteSomehow, I think you have it wrong, and as your friend, I need to set you straight.
1. First things first — Either you are a Duck or you aren't. After all those years, it is difficult for me to believe that you aren't.
2. Few are chosen — Outside of the perennial elite programs (USC, Ohio State, Florida, Oklahoma, etc.), most fans are supporting teams that have no realistic shot at BCS bowls, or are very infrequent "guest participants." If you expect to be in a the big-bowl hunt every year, move to Florida.
Let's face it, neither the Ducks nor the Beavers (nor WSU and Washington) are going to be in the hunt for a BCS bowl every year.
3. It's entertainment — Contrary to your claim that football is more important than life or death, football is simply entertainment. We go to movies, concerts, and football games to be entertained. In each case, there are good ones and bad ones. Ones we wished we had not wasted our time on, and those that are truly memorable. The Cal game was a clunker. So what, there is always next week. USC is the only PAC-10 team with annual hope.
3. Get over it — I am a Beaver fan. We lived through decades of 42-3 and 56-12 losses. Yet, I am still a Beaver. So the Ducks played horibly last week. OSU played horribly for about 30 years, and still do from time-to-time (can you say, "Penn State?")
4. Quit reading the pre-season articles — Each August, the PAC-10 writers like to say that the Ducks will battle USC for first place, and that the Beavers will finish somewhere around 6th to 9th place. Over the last few years, Beaver fans have had the good fortune of the team exceeding those expectations.
Duck fans, however, expect way too much. I know that people in Eugene believe that they are way cool, and that Corvallis is just a place for cows and gay sheep. Let's get real. The best players on the West Coast don't want to play in Eugene (or Corvallis, Pullman, and five other locations). They want to, and do, play in LA. If they can't play there, they move north to the Bay Area, or East to Arizona. The leftovers trikle up to Oregon and Washington.
5. You don't have a "real QB" — what to you expect when you have to suit up the waterboy to play QB? Healthy, realiable QBs just aren't happening, right now. Until somebody can stay healthy for a season, it will be difficult to win consistently.
6. There will be another Joey — Sure, it seems impossible. But, I remember thinking that there would never be another Ken Simonton. Then Jackson came along. There would never be another James Newsom, but Mike Haas came along.
7. Tell the truth — How would you feel if OSU wins its remaining games and the Ducks knock them out of the Rose Bowl by winning 42-3? Come on, how would it feel?