Frustration - a feeling of dissatisfaction, often accompanied by anxiety or depression, resulting from unfulfilled needs or unresolved problems; a feeling of annoyance at being hindered; the condition that results when an internal impulse or an action is thwarted by an external force.
We're all fans of The Ohio State University, the Best Damned Team in the Land. We've got great players, excellent coaches, The Horseshoe, the Woody Hayes Athletic Center, Script Ohio, and all that. And we've got history - seven national championships, thirty-three Big Ten championships (seventeen outright), seven Heisman Trophies, one hundred eighty first-team All Americans, thirty-six Academic All Americans, and twenty-six members of the College Football Hall of Fame. Simply put, we are an elite program, the best of the best. Every year we expect to win it all ... and almost every year we go home disappointed.
I suppose that going home disappointed is the essence of being a fan - we always expect the moon and the stars ... and then we watch in disbelief as our season crashes and burns like a meteor. And then, depending on our dispositions, we gripe and complain and bitch and moan and say things like "Fire the coaches!" or "Our team sucks!" or "At least we beat Michigan!" or "We could be Notre Dame LOL" and of course "Wait until next year...."
As Buckeye fans, we expect to win. Scratch that ... we deserve to win. It's our entitlement, because our team is the best. After this year's Penn State game, a tough loss that really should have been a victory, I said that "the Buckeyes are supposed to win 80-90% of their games." Now, I realize that my statement contains a sprig of hyperbole and a dash of wishful thinking, but in reality Ohio State has won eighty percent or more of its games enough times that such seasons could practically be considered "normal". Sure we have our down years, even our down eras, just like everybody else ... but unlike almost anybody else, we can reasonably expect to win, to win big, to win it all, each and every season. And when we don't win, there must be something wrong in the college football universe, and that is the source of our collective frustration.
Of course, we don't have any empathy for fans of other schools, because we are supposed to win, not them. How could they be frustrated when they lose? When a Penn State or a Michigan or a Georgia or a Texas blows a national championship, it's not a shock or even a surprise ... it's just the natural order of things. And when they do somehow happen to win, it's only because they got lucky ... and they didn't play anybody ... and they're media darlings ... and obviously they cheated ... and we could've beaten them anyway....
Over the last forty years, Ohio State has had numerous seasons in which the team has won more than 80% of its games[sup]1[/sup], yet during that time the Buckeye Nation has only two national titles (1968 and 2002) to show for all of that "greatness". I imagine that fans of most programs would be thrilled with results like that ... but as Ohio State fans, we expect just a little bit more from our team, don't we? We know that Ohio State is an "elite" program, and many objective facts support our assertion: the overall record, the bowl appearances, the Big Ten titles, the major award winners, the All Americans, and so on and so forth. And still, with all of that team success and with all of those individual accolades, our beloved Buckeyes have earned just two national championships in the past four decades, because every year, something always seems to go wrong for us. And that is precisely why being a Buckeye fan can be so damned frustrating.
However, if we could be absolutely, totally, completely, and perfectly objective and impartial for just a minute or two, don't fans of Oklahoma and Tennessee and Florida State ... and even Southern Cal and Notre Dame ... suffer as many disappointments and heartbreaks as we do? Haven't those teams, and many others besides, suffered their fair share of boneheaded plays, stupid coaching decisions, blown calls, unlucky bounces, untimely injuries, media biases, unbelieveable upsets, and agonizing losses that have cost them the national titles that they deserved?
Maybe ... but then again, maybe not. Maybe the Buckeyes really are more cursed and snakebitten than any other team. I've been a fan of the Cleveland Indians for as long as I can remember (nearly forty years), and the Cavaliers as well. When I attended Amherst College, I adopted the Boston Red Sox for a few seasons, and vicariously suffered through the fiasco that was the 1986 World Series (made all the worse because there were so many Mets fans on campus). I was even a Browns fan for a while, before the meds kicked in. Each of those teams had their share of heartbreaks along the way - The Drive, The Fumble, The Move, The Shot, Jose Mesa, Bill Buckner, and so on and so forth - and there were no championships to alleviate the pain - but somehow it always felt worse when the Buckeyes blew it. And it seemed like the Buckeyes blew it a lot. While I could generally rest assured that the Indians would be out of contention by the First of May, the Buckeyes were always in the thick of things right until the end, with the end often being a loss (or tie) to Michigan in The Game (1969, 1973, 1993, 1995, 1996, 2003), or to some Pac-8/10 team in the Rose Bowl (1970, 1972, 1974, 1975, 1979), or more recently a beat down in the BCS Title Game (2006, 2007). All of which got me to thinking: Was there any way to quantify a Buckeye fan's frustrations, some sort of college football "misery index" that we could use to prove that we had been screwed, blued, tattooed, and barbequed worse than any other fan base? Having lived through four decades of SNAFU's and FUBAR's, I was certain that it could be done....
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[sup]1[/sup] For ease or reference, I shall sometimes call such seasons "eighty-plus seasons".
We're all fans of The Ohio State University, the Best Damned Team in the Land. We've got great players, excellent coaches, The Horseshoe, the Woody Hayes Athletic Center, Script Ohio, and all that. And we've got history - seven national championships, thirty-three Big Ten championships (seventeen outright), seven Heisman Trophies, one hundred eighty first-team All Americans, thirty-six Academic All Americans, and twenty-six members of the College Football Hall of Fame. Simply put, we are an elite program, the best of the best. Every year we expect to win it all ... and almost every year we go home disappointed.
I suppose that going home disappointed is the essence of being a fan - we always expect the moon and the stars ... and then we watch in disbelief as our season crashes and burns like a meteor. And then, depending on our dispositions, we gripe and complain and bitch and moan and say things like "Fire the coaches!" or "Our team sucks!" or "At least we beat Michigan!" or "We could be Notre Dame LOL" and of course "Wait until next year...."
As Buckeye fans, we expect to win. Scratch that ... we deserve to win. It's our entitlement, because our team is the best. After this year's Penn State game, a tough loss that really should have been a victory, I said that "the Buckeyes are supposed to win 80-90% of their games." Now, I realize that my statement contains a sprig of hyperbole and a dash of wishful thinking, but in reality Ohio State has won eighty percent or more of its games enough times that such seasons could practically be considered "normal". Sure we have our down years, even our down eras, just like everybody else ... but unlike almost anybody else, we can reasonably expect to win, to win big, to win it all, each and every season. And when we don't win, there must be something wrong in the college football universe, and that is the source of our collective frustration.
Of course, we don't have any empathy for fans of other schools, because we are supposed to win, not them. How could they be frustrated when they lose? When a Penn State or a Michigan or a Georgia or a Texas blows a national championship, it's not a shock or even a surprise ... it's just the natural order of things. And when they do somehow happen to win, it's only because they got lucky ... and they didn't play anybody ... and they're media darlings ... and obviously they cheated ... and we could've beaten them anyway....
Over the last forty years, Ohio State has had numerous seasons in which the team has won more than 80% of its games[sup]1[/sup], yet during that time the Buckeye Nation has only two national titles (1968 and 2002) to show for all of that "greatness". I imagine that fans of most programs would be thrilled with results like that ... but as Ohio State fans, we expect just a little bit more from our team, don't we? We know that Ohio State is an "elite" program, and many objective facts support our assertion: the overall record, the bowl appearances, the Big Ten titles, the major award winners, the All Americans, and so on and so forth. And still, with all of that team success and with all of those individual accolades, our beloved Buckeyes have earned just two national championships in the past four decades, because every year, something always seems to go wrong for us. And that is precisely why being a Buckeye fan can be so damned frustrating.
However, if we could be absolutely, totally, completely, and perfectly objective and impartial for just a minute or two, don't fans of Oklahoma and Tennessee and Florida State ... and even Southern Cal and Notre Dame ... suffer as many disappointments and heartbreaks as we do? Haven't those teams, and many others besides, suffered their fair share of boneheaded plays, stupid coaching decisions, blown calls, unlucky bounces, untimely injuries, media biases, unbelieveable upsets, and agonizing losses that have cost them the national titles that they deserved?
Maybe ... but then again, maybe not. Maybe the Buckeyes really are more cursed and snakebitten than any other team. I've been a fan of the Cleveland Indians for as long as I can remember (nearly forty years), and the Cavaliers as well. When I attended Amherst College, I adopted the Boston Red Sox for a few seasons, and vicariously suffered through the fiasco that was the 1986 World Series (made all the worse because there were so many Mets fans on campus). I was even a Browns fan for a while, before the meds kicked in. Each of those teams had their share of heartbreaks along the way - The Drive, The Fumble, The Move, The Shot, Jose Mesa, Bill Buckner, and so on and so forth - and there were no championships to alleviate the pain - but somehow it always felt worse when the Buckeyes blew it. And it seemed like the Buckeyes blew it a lot. While I could generally rest assured that the Indians would be out of contention by the First of May, the Buckeyes were always in the thick of things right until the end, with the end often being a loss (or tie) to Michigan in The Game (1969, 1973, 1993, 1995, 1996, 2003), or to some Pac-8/10 team in the Rose Bowl (1970, 1972, 1974, 1975, 1979), or more recently a beat down in the BCS Title Game (2006, 2007). All of which got me to thinking: Was there any way to quantify a Buckeye fan's frustrations, some sort of college football "misery index" that we could use to prove that we had been screwed, blued, tattooed, and barbequed worse than any other fan base? Having lived through four decades of SNAFU's and FUBAR's, I was certain that it could be done....
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[sup]1[/sup] For ease or reference, I shall sometimes call such seasons "eighty-plus seasons".
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