Matt Tamanini
Guest
Fandom is like your favorite sweatshirt; and other musings on being a fan following a demoralizing loss
Matt Tamanini via our friends at Land-Grant Holy Land
Visit their fantastic blog and read the full article (and so much more) here
Joseph Maiorana-Imagn Images
Ohio State’s fourth-straight loss to Michigan isn’t the end of the world, even if it feels like it right now.
Ohio State will play another football game in approximately three weeks. Between now and then (and preferably much sooner for our own sanities) we all need to come to terms with the events that occurred in Ohio Stadium on Saturday and figure out the individual ways that we are going to approach them. I am on the record that I believe a change in leadership is necessary for the Ohio State football program, and nothing short of a miraculously transformational four-game playoff run is going to change my opinion on that.
However, I am a lifelong Ohio State fan, and that’s never going to change. I am still going to proudly wear my Buckeye gear in public, I’m still going to watch press conferences and listen to podcasts (although it will probably take me a few days to be able to stomach that again), I am still going to pull for OSU to win every recruiting battle, and I will cheer my heart out for them no matter who or where they play in the College Football Playoff.
But, because I love this year’s team, the program as a whole, and my alma mater in general, I am going to continue to expect better from them all; therefore, when necessary, I am going to voice my concerns here on Land-Grant Holy Land and our various podcasts as I have for the past nine seasons. Since this has been an ongoing discussion during Ryan Day’s tenure in Columbus, I have long believed that just because you love something, doesn’t mean that you can’t criticize it; in fact, I believe it is healthy when you do.
So, that is the specific needle that I am going to try to thread coming out of a ridiculously frustrating, painful, and demoralizing 13-10 loss to Michigan, the fourth in as many years. I will hope for the best, and likely even convince myself that they can make a run to a title once the CFP field is released a week from today. But I will do so with my eyes wide open, knowing full well that Lucy is more than likely going to snatch the ball away from me, as she always seems to do, just as I am winding up for the kick.
But I won’t fault fans if they are off the bandwagon temporarily or even permanently. I’ve made it a point over the years to try and never criticize people for how they express their respective fandoms, as long as it does not turn toxic or violent. So, I am fully in support of you doing you in the wake of a fourth-straight loss to That Team Up North.
If you want to wallow in self-pity and despair for a few days, go for it. If you want to curse the gods for allowing such a fate to befall your favorite football team, have at it. If you want to immediately move on and focus on the good things in your life, I’m happy for you. All of these responses are valid.
My only word of caution is that if you are going to opt for something that hues closer to the first two options, don’t sit in the extreme versions of those emotions for too long. For many of us, it’s likely going to take a while for the pain of this defeat to fade (if it ever fully does), but it doesn't do you — or the people around you — any good to allow it to consume you. Those kinds of emotions ferment and turn into something much uglier that is unbecoming of you and Buckeye Nation.
As I have come into middle age, I have slowly (and often not especially gracefully) realized that allowing a football team — or any other type of fandom — to become the central focus of one’s personality is not especially healthy nor ultimately conducive to living a happy life. Fandom is a drug; the highs of victory are intoxicatingly sweet, but the lows of failure can be mentally and physically crippling.
And yet, those results have nothing to do with us as fans. Aside from maybe the tertiary connection of contributing to an NIL collective or cheering from the stands, we have no real hand in any given win or loss. And yet, our emotions thereafter are real; sometimes too real.
I’m not sure what their schedule will be following the end of the regular season, but sometime in the next day or so, the team is going to officially turn the page and refocus its attention on the postseason. They will do what they can to learn the lessons of this loss and attempt to be better when they get back on the field on either Dec. 20 or 21. I know that the guys in the Woody Hayes Athletic Center are hurting far more over the outcome in The Horseshoe yesterday than I ever could be. So, I am choosing to view the fact that they finding ways to put one foot in front of the other as instructive.
Perhaps this is something I learned living in SEC country during the 2006 and 2007 seasons when Ohio State lost back-to-back national championship games to Florida and LSU respectively, but fandom should be something that primarily brings you joy. It obviously won’t all the time, and when it doesn’t, it’s okay to a break for a while; not from being a fan, but living in the fandom.
It’s like your favorite sweatshirt. You wear it day in and day out; there is comfort in the routine of putting it on, looking in the mirror, and smiling. The warmth the sweatshirt provides is cozy, it’s familiar, it’s a literal hug every day. The sweatshirt brings back tender memories that put a single sentimental tear in your eye. Those memories feel good, so you wear the sweatshirt so often that eventually, you are wearing the sweatshirt when something bad happens. Then you’re wearing it again when something else bad happens. You chalk it up to coincidence and dismiss the creeping sense of connection and focus on the positive times that you’ve had while wearing your favorite sweatshirt.
But then a third and fourth bad thing happen and you can’t ignore it anymore. While the sweatshirt was not responsible for those bad things happening, you can no longer avoid the association between the sweatshirt and those bad things. So, you take off the sweatshirt, wash it, and hang it in your closet.
The sweatshirt is still yours, it is part of you, you could never throw it away. But it got to a point where the sweatshirt wasn't providing your life with the same positivity that it once did. Negative thoughts and memories had latched onto the sweatshirt, coloring your relationship with it and, in turn, how you interacted with the world around you will wearing it.
So, the sane and healthy thing to do in this admittedly disjointed metaphor is to take a break from the sweatshirt. It could be one day, it could be one week, it could be one year; however long you need for the negative emotions attached to the sweatshirt to stop overwhelming all of the good memories. You are the only one who will know when that is, but to bring it back home to Ohio State, if you need to disengage with the all-encompassing content machine that is the Buckeye beat, do it. If you need to avoid college football sites, videos, and podcasts to maintain your sanity, please do. If you need to rotate a generic hoodie into your wardrobe rotation for a little bit, there’s no shame in that; your favorite Buckeye sweatshirt will be there when you are ready to put it back on.
Continue reading...
Matt Tamanini via our friends at Land-Grant Holy Land
Visit their fantastic blog and read the full article (and so much more) here
Joseph Maiorana-Imagn Images
Ohio State’s fourth-straight loss to Michigan isn’t the end of the world, even if it feels like it right now.
Ohio State will play another football game in approximately three weeks. Between now and then (and preferably much sooner for our own sanities) we all need to come to terms with the events that occurred in Ohio Stadium on Saturday and figure out the individual ways that we are going to approach them. I am on the record that I believe a change in leadership is necessary for the Ohio State football program, and nothing short of a miraculously transformational four-game playoff run is going to change my opinion on that.
However, I am a lifelong Ohio State fan, and that’s never going to change. I am still going to proudly wear my Buckeye gear in public, I’m still going to watch press conferences and listen to podcasts (although it will probably take me a few days to be able to stomach that again), I am still going to pull for OSU to win every recruiting battle, and I will cheer my heart out for them no matter who or where they play in the College Football Playoff.
But, because I love this year’s team, the program as a whole, and my alma mater in general, I am going to continue to expect better from them all; therefore, when necessary, I am going to voice my concerns here on Land-Grant Holy Land and our various podcasts as I have for the past nine seasons. Since this has been an ongoing discussion during Ryan Day’s tenure in Columbus, I have long believed that just because you love something, doesn’t mean that you can’t criticize it; in fact, I believe it is healthy when you do.
So, that is the specific needle that I am going to try to thread coming out of a ridiculously frustrating, painful, and demoralizing 13-10 loss to Michigan, the fourth in as many years. I will hope for the best, and likely even convince myself that they can make a run to a title once the CFP field is released a week from today. But I will do so with my eyes wide open, knowing full well that Lucy is more than likely going to snatch the ball away from me, as she always seems to do, just as I am winding up for the kick.
But I won’t fault fans if they are off the bandwagon temporarily or even permanently. I’ve made it a point over the years to try and never criticize people for how they express their respective fandoms, as long as it does not turn toxic or violent. So, I am fully in support of you doing you in the wake of a fourth-straight loss to That Team Up North.
If you want to wallow in self-pity and despair for a few days, go for it. If you want to curse the gods for allowing such a fate to befall your favorite football team, have at it. If you want to immediately move on and focus on the good things in your life, I’m happy for you. All of these responses are valid.
My only word of caution is that if you are going to opt for something that hues closer to the first two options, don’t sit in the extreme versions of those emotions for too long. For many of us, it’s likely going to take a while for the pain of this defeat to fade (if it ever fully does), but it doesn't do you — or the people around you — any good to allow it to consume you. Those kinds of emotions ferment and turn into something much uglier that is unbecoming of you and Buckeye Nation.
As I have come into middle age, I have slowly (and often not especially gracefully) realized that allowing a football team — or any other type of fandom — to become the central focus of one’s personality is not especially healthy nor ultimately conducive to living a happy life. Fandom is a drug; the highs of victory are intoxicatingly sweet, but the lows of failure can be mentally and physically crippling.
And yet, those results have nothing to do with us as fans. Aside from maybe the tertiary connection of contributing to an NIL collective or cheering from the stands, we have no real hand in any given win or loss. And yet, our emotions thereafter are real; sometimes too real.
I’m not sure what their schedule will be following the end of the regular season, but sometime in the next day or so, the team is going to officially turn the page and refocus its attention on the postseason. They will do what they can to learn the lessons of this loss and attempt to be better when they get back on the field on either Dec. 20 or 21. I know that the guys in the Woody Hayes Athletic Center are hurting far more over the outcome in The Horseshoe yesterday than I ever could be. So, I am choosing to view the fact that they finding ways to put one foot in front of the other as instructive.
Perhaps this is something I learned living in SEC country during the 2006 and 2007 seasons when Ohio State lost back-to-back national championship games to Florida and LSU respectively, but fandom should be something that primarily brings you joy. It obviously won’t all the time, and when it doesn’t, it’s okay to a break for a while; not from being a fan, but living in the fandom.
It’s like your favorite sweatshirt. You wear it day in and day out; there is comfort in the routine of putting it on, looking in the mirror, and smiling. The warmth the sweatshirt provides is cozy, it’s familiar, it’s a literal hug every day. The sweatshirt brings back tender memories that put a single sentimental tear in your eye. Those memories feel good, so you wear the sweatshirt so often that eventually, you are wearing the sweatshirt when something bad happens. Then you’re wearing it again when something else bad happens. You chalk it up to coincidence and dismiss the creeping sense of connection and focus on the positive times that you’ve had while wearing your favorite sweatshirt.
But then a third and fourth bad thing happen and you can’t ignore it anymore. While the sweatshirt was not responsible for those bad things happening, you can no longer avoid the association between the sweatshirt and those bad things. So, you take off the sweatshirt, wash it, and hang it in your closet.
The sweatshirt is still yours, it is part of you, you could never throw it away. But it got to a point where the sweatshirt wasn't providing your life with the same positivity that it once did. Negative thoughts and memories had latched onto the sweatshirt, coloring your relationship with it and, in turn, how you interacted with the world around you will wearing it.
So, the sane and healthy thing to do in this admittedly disjointed metaphor is to take a break from the sweatshirt. It could be one day, it could be one week, it could be one year; however long you need for the negative emotions attached to the sweatshirt to stop overwhelming all of the good memories. You are the only one who will know when that is, but to bring it back home to Ohio State, if you need to disengage with the all-encompassing content machine that is the Buckeye beat, do it. If you need to avoid college football sites, videos, and podcasts to maintain your sanity, please do. If you need to rotate a generic hoodie into your wardrobe rotation for a little bit, there’s no shame in that; your favorite Buckeye sweatshirt will be there when you are ready to put it back on.
Continue reading...