Chez StanMinn Communiqués: National Championship

The Oregon Ducks did not win the National Championship last night.
We are gobsmacked.
The entire state is stunned, let alone the 30 mile radius around Eugene, where we fall.
Adding insult to injury was all the bullshit I had to enure from 'my people' leading up to the big game.
I don't even know what to expect from the gloaters now that it's reached the ugly end, so I'm not answering the phone, checking e-mail or even surfing the net for at least the next week.
So in case you haven't figured it out by now, this entry's all about football.
Read no further if this sport holds no interest to you.

I, on the other hand, LOVE it!
I play Fantasy Football, Pick'ems, Survivors, Salary Cap, all the on-line games.
And it's too bad I didn't play for money this year, because I crushed it.
My football acumen was uncanny.
And I think I've figured out why I'm so into it.
There is little else going on in the middle of Ohio, where I grew up, so it goes that sports- mainly football (including pro & college) followed by baseball, become the main entertainment and focus and ultimately, identity.
Both my brothers played, as did just about every other boy I knew.
Being a Flag Corps member my sophomore and junior years, I traveled with the marching band performing during all of the halftime shows: it didn't matter our team sucked.
(Though that's no longer the case.)
My town was well on its way to becoming a suburb of the capital eons ago and by now has accomplished that for population growth and sprawl.
By default of proximity, we were Buckeye fans, despite my father's attendance at OH Wesleyan & Otterbein.
Scarlet & Grey were just the way of things.
While I was in high school, my mother went back to college at OSU.
She happened to be enrolled in a basic psychology class alongside several members of the football team, including the charismatic and popular quarterback.
Because there tended to be more conversation about the game than the Oedipus Complex, she became challenged and intrigued by the strange, new topic, as the sport had held no appeal to her before.
Meeting her, you'd never guess her obsession with the Bucks- until she opens her mouth.
She (and my brother and I suppose me to a point) know enough about our viewing habits and solidarity to admit watching games in a crowd is ill advised as we tend to over-react, as immature and ridiculous that may sound.
How they performed the previous day informed my Sunday calls home
About the same time, Dow Chemical opened up a facility in our area (research, mostly, I think), relocating many families from Midland, Michigan.
This was during the dark days of the Bruce/Schembechler rivalry, when too often than not, the team to the north would crush "us".
That these new residents were so smug and arrogant and dismissive left a long lasting bad taste for their preferred team in my mouth.
They judged their new neighbors backward and simple, then set about to changing our fair village into a vision of what they'd been forced from- much like what the SoCals have done by moving up the coast and succeeding to terraform Seattle physically, politically and in spirit
They were also very poor winners.
Not until I'd relocated to the PNW did I relax my contempt, for by then I figured we were all buds on this side of the Cascades.
But make no mistake, my loyalties would never waver from the home colors.

Eventually, other family members joined my mother as Ohio State graduates and I continued my support, even after I moved out and south to The University of Cincinnati- home of the Bearcats.
But this was long before they mattered (their basketball program was just beginning to succeed); the football field was a scoop in the middle of campus I only stepped into on a handful of occasions- not a one of them being an actual game.
I was too busy discovering my alter-ego while in art school there, which dictated wearing black, too much eye make-up and looking at my toes while 'dancing' to The Damned.
After graduation, I stuck around before heading to the Left Coast.
(Incidentally, my time there coincided with Urban Meyer's, the current coach at OSU. But since he was playing the fraternity jock, it's unlikely our paths crossed much.)
It was during that decade I became fond of its professional team, The Bengals.
It would have been hard not to.
This was during the boom of the Wyche, Collinsworth & Esiason years.
Topped off by The Ickey (Woods) shuffle.
Media brilliantly paraded these fun fellows around throughout the season and beyond.
This was the genesis of the Who Dey chant, thanks to a local brewery tie-in.
There was so much energy, color, support, and success in those days.

Is this personalized quilt not awesome? I can't thank Brenda B. enough for her generous talent.

However, I felt a little dirty since honestly, I'd been raised a Cleveland fan.
Just like we defaulted to the Buckeyes by location, so too, the Browns.

(Yet, don't ask about the reverse logic with MBL teams.)
I don't really get it at all.
It's not like the men in my family were huge sports nuts.
It'd be just a thing on tv in the background on weekends they'd sometimes pay attention to.
There was some gear, but hardly like what's available and purchased in 2015.
The brothers pulled the Sears catalog out every xmas pointing to which jammies and helmet they'd like for the coming year.
David, Lions.
Doug, Dolphins.
And me. Rams.
(I never received anything.)

I think we were more attracted to the design and colors than anything else, certainly not team association.
We aged out of those choices and settled on the history and tradition of Brown & Orange.
But if you know anything about the history of that team at all, you'd know supporting it will cause only pain and suffering.
Maybe that's why it was appealing to glomb onto Cincy (unless they were playing intra-state rivals) because they actually WON games and progressed sometimes so far, they went to the SUPER BOWL.

So I identified first with Cleveland, then Cincinnati and it was good, clean fun.

YouTube "Factory of Sadness" and not only will you not be sorry, you will watch it again and again and year after year

We of the Dawg Pound suffer Stockholm Syndrome, having for generations to back the home team which is a huge bummer.
Heart wrenching.
One of the biggest disappointments you could ever imagine.
Nothing ever seems to go right.
But that's just the way it is, ask any city with a losing franchise.
And when that glorious day finally arrives that your team, the team whose colors run in your veins, do something outstanding, the feeling of elation and thrill and revelry is unbelievable.
Or so I'm told.

OK, full disclosure.
I -was- living in Seattle while that football team was under the leadership of Mike Holmgren and made a trip to the big party, tho' it was sad to see the refs side with the Steelers.*
*There's more to how I feel about the Steelers, which might just surprise you.
He injected some much needed cred and talent into the program, laying the foundation to what we've seen now under Pete Carroll, who's no slouch himself.
The point being, I do know the groundswell of the entirety of a peoples coming together to celebrate.
But I was never fully committed to the teams of WA state.
The University of Washington is a beautiful campus and full of smart people doing important things.
And lots of kids who grew up and around Puget Sound and for some reason never leave it.
Their football stadium is only 1 of 2 in the country accessible by water.
(Trivia bonus- name the other. Hint: My college beau was from there.)
While I worked on the tour boats, we had great gigs transporting drunk fans to and from those games.
They were actually pretty fun and mostly tipped well.
But the Huskies?
Meh.
Never really spoke to me.
Seahawks fans were, and are even more so, insufferable.
I attended their events both at what's now called CenturyLink Field and the iconic, but poorly designed Kingdome, including a Browns game so bad the details are lost in my brain meat.
What I do remember, is that those cock-suckers were picking on a little girl in glasses rooting for the opposing losing team.
Talk about sore winners.
Assholes even stole my worn out old toboggan and played keep away after the defeat.
Really guys?
That jerk-off behavior has just exacerbated now that the expansion team has finally turned the corner.
The new money that sapped Seattle of its soul has had the same effect on the Seahawk fan base- what other is so full of themselves that they fly a flag prior to every game and believe they are on par with the actual team itself?
And perhaps that was part of the problem- because they were new, they didn't understand the dues one must pay.
A BROWNS FAN DOES

I think what I hate the most about these people are that they are bandwagon fans.
With bad attitudes.
They never wanted to suffer to growing pains and humiliation that true backers must.
And I have martyred myself at the foot of that evil demi-god.
Paid in blood, sweat and tears.
Many, many tears.

Which brings us back round to THE DUCKS!

I knew nothing of the University of Oregon when we moved down in 2008, other than I'd attended some righteous Dead shows at their Autzen Stadium.
The irony being all these years later, something altogether different, yet equally glorious was occurring there.
A most vigorous and exciting college team was coming into its own.
Yes, you can argue Phil Knight and his Nike monies had lots to do with it, but so what?

Patronage isn't a crime, quite the opposite- it's great, if you can get it.
And the chips just happened to fall here for that.
At first we mocked the rabid community support, because surely, most of these Cro-Magnons running around in Green & Yellow with ginormous 'O's stuck to their pick-ups hadn't attended the university.
But then it became clear, they were just like we'd been in Ohio!
It didn't matter a hoot whether or not you'd ever stepped foot on campus, it was that identity thing again.
All brothers here in the land of not a whole lot going on.
(Except there is more on this side of the country than back in the middle: if you ask my humble opinion.)
Everyone went to the games, or tried to.
Tickets impossible to get and if you were lucky enough, mighty expensive.
Call me a hypocrite, but I sure as hell jumped on this bandwagon.
I'll spare you the details of stats, stars, and protracted story of what exactly happened other than to say by the time we got to town, they were on fire and only getting hotter.
Mania.
It ravaged the area.
And when we traveled out of the county, it always shocked us to see the other OSU being represented on decals, bumper stickers, flags, etc.
(I've nothing against the Oregon State Beavers, I just don't live in Corvallis and have no direct affiliation with them.)
There was just so much to -talk- about.
Happy stuff. Smart stuff. Promising stuff.
We Facebooked, Twittered and Tweeted before, during and after games.
So enthralling!
We knew the boys by name, their year, where they'd come from. their strengths their mugs.
If it wasn't being shown on television, you could pull up the contest via the Internet.
Either way, we'd tune in Jerry Allen, the Voice of the Ducks, who called the game on the local rock station which took a break from its programming to air it.
And then he voiced local commercials.
It's a small town.
I always knew that and had a tough time with the adjustment, but now it all fell into place and I embraced it.
Hard.
This team did not disappoint and they just kept climbing, getting better.
We were collectively better for them.
The commonality.
Knowing nods, broad smiles, engaging STRANGERS in conversation!
Madness.
We expected these guys to perform, because they did.
Local media couldn't get enough of them.
They were decent, likable, humble, hard working.
Especially at a time when others in the NCAA had been so badly behaved.
Our coach was from the state and HE was a good guy.
He had family connections to UO and his return was lauded.
We were all just one, big blissful football family.
And you know, we still are.
The season is over.
Next year's will be even more different than before and I've no doubt we'll rally behind them again.
But this year.
This year was...
It was magical.
Exceptional.
And I dare you to find anyone in that 30 mile radius and beyond who has a bad word to say.

(Extra, extra, read all about it!)
Determining the National Champion with this play-off system has been a long time coming, and though it's not perfect, it's a step in the right direction.
(Did you know Condoleezza Rice was on that selection committee? Weird, huh?)
I'm thrilled the reign of the SEC is over; I don't care much for the South or their teams.
We Ducks couldn't be happier to go to Dallas for the inaugural competition.
In the old BCS system it's unlikely we would have; and certainly Ohio State wouldn't even be in the conversation.
No doubt they impressed with that stump of a 3rd string quarterback those last few games.
Frankly, truth be told, even if the snafu with extra practice due to class scheduling hadn't occurred, I'm not sure it would have helped- the team who played on 1-12-15 wasn't the one we 'd cheered all year.
I mean really, wth?
It was a Greek tragedy playing out before our horrified eyes.
We were confident in their win, that they'd cream their final opponent, as usual.
But it was a slow train of disaster we all watched stupefied.
And while on errands the next day in town, CAM reported it was so quiet, a gloomy cloud hung low and strangled out all the bright which had radiated through and around us not 24 hrs. before.
Mourning.
Such disappointment.
Yeah, a football game.
Shut up- don't judge. Or do. I don't care.
We don't care.
We were sad.
And I felt the worst for those poor fellas deplaning at our rinky-dink municipal airport to very little fanfare the following day.
You could see the shell shock still in their eyes, which doesn't seem a fair thing to happen to a 20 something year old football player.
They're still just kids and so much had been put upon them.
You could tell the whole thing just made them sick.

That my new world collided with my old was beyond imaginable; what history.
Sure I'm sorry "we" weren't able to follow up the stunning Rose Bowl/PAC-12* win by putting an !!! on the season.
*UO- 52 FSU- 20
(YouTube Meyer's reaction to hearing that score after his Alabama win, which was remarkable in its own right.)
I wanted our precious, Heisman Trophy winner, Marcus Mariota, to enter the NFL with *all* the accolades.
(I'm just being greedy on his behalf; his trophy shelf is burdened.)
I wanted the high to last well into the rainy days of winter where there is no football and won't be for months.
And to be honest, I really wanted to thumb my nose at all those mouthy fucking Buckeyes.