Avdat

Dallas Cowboy fans have so much to teach us

While chatting with brother John this weekend I had an epiphany. NC State fans and Washington Redskins fans are a lot alike.

Both teams have strong traditions. Neither fan base has had much to cheer about in a long, long time. In theory, there is nothing standing in the way of a return to glory. And yet incompetent management (former State AD Lee Fowler is the Wolfpack Dan Snyder), going to the well once too often (Joe Gibbs=Sidney Lowe), and something inexplicable conspire to frustrate the aspirations of both.

Frustration is an understatement. Impotent rage is more like it.

When the Redskins botched that game against Jacksonville last fall, you could almost hear silverware clinking together in the air as Virginians everywhere rifled through their kitchen drawers for a knife to open up their wrists with.

I can't remember which game it was a few years ago--I believe it was against Wake and Sendek was still coaching State--but due to a combination of bad calls, bad coaching and bad playing, the Wolfpack had once again snatched defeat from the jaws of victory. The students on the front row were stunned, but the fat cat alums right behind them--the ones who remember the glory days--were apoplectic. They didn't look like Egyptians marching in the streets. They looked like Iranians in 1979--wide-eyed, fanatical, consumed with hatred. Only the hand of God prevented the mob from slaying everyone on the court that afternoon.

You don't see Dallas Cowboy fans acting like this. And it's worth asking Why.

Can't touch this

You Tarhole fans need to understand one thing: you will never, ever lay a glove on me. Why? Because you care more than I do. I know it. You know it. We both know it. Everybody knows it. And that gives me all the power in this relationship.

Why don't I care more than you do? If I said that it's because I'm older, wiser and thus smart enough not to hitch my emotional well-being to a bunch of twenty-year-old boys playing games, I'd be right. But only partially. Some of you are old and wise as well.

If I said it's because I am a full-time student, working two part-time jobs, a father of two (one being autistic), a husband and something of a political junkie and thus have too full a life to give myself unreservedly to N.C. State sports, I'd be telling the truth. But not the whole truth. Some of you lead pretty full lives as well.

Let's be honest. N.C. State hasn't won much in the last 20 years, and I've adjusted my expectations accordingly. When State beats Carolina I'm pleasantly surprised. When State doesn't, well, it doesn't hurt because I knew better than to get my hopes up in the first place.

Put differently, I have a strictly pagan, not Christian, relationship with the sports gods. When it comes to sports, I haven't any use for self-denial, cross-bearing and maybe next year. If the sports gods don't bless me, I won't bless them. 

You Tarhole fans are different. The sports gods have been good to you. Well, the basketball deity, anyway. It's hard for you to let go, to think about sports philosophically. And since you're fully committed, when the gods go off and in a fit of fickleness reward your arch rival, you take it personally. It's an existential crisis.

Both of us expected Carolina to sweep State this year, and our expectations were met. Neither of us expected the Tarholes to fall from the heights of a National Championship to the depths of second-best among the also-rans. I'm pleasantly surprised. And you? To add insult to injury, the Blue Devils up and succeeded you at the top. Nobody expected that.

So say all you want about sweeping us. We both know it's cold comfort to you. Right now, looking ahead to a long, hot summer of Dook National Champion t-shirts and hats covering the bodies of a multitude of homers at the beach, the mall, and the pool, we both know you'd gladly trade those two victories over State for Butler's desperation half-court heave falling in. In a heartbeat.

I will pick on, taunt and abuse you all summer, and whatever creative barbs you come up with will fall on me like a feather on the hull of a Cylon base star. And the bad thing about it is, football season probably won't bring you any relief.

I know it. You know it. Everybody knows it.

Is Advent all that necessary?

In your humble blogger's opinion, State beating Carolina IS realized eschatology, but I do intend to go to church this morning to cover my bases...

Pigskin

I don't get State. I really don't. I knew going into this season that their secondary was weak, but how does a team that beats Big East Champion Pitt and was one turnover away from beating South Carolina 3-0 get torched by... Thaddeus Lewis? Not to take anything away from Dook--no, belay that line of thought--unless Dook finishes the season bowl eligible, you'd have to rank State's performance this Saturday the worst in Division IA this year. Except perhaps for Pitt blowing that fourth quarter lead to State two weeks ago.

Maybe I should finally jump on that U of R bandwagon. At least the Spiders can beat Dook.

In more football news from the Old Dominion, Al Groh officially qualified for undead status after following up a win over the Tarheels by walloping Indiana. Multiply Groh's tenure by the boosters who hate him will make your calculator show E, but Groh's on his way to not getting fired... again.

Glad to see the Panthers win, but if the Panthers have to come from behind to beat Washington at home, I won't have much joy the rest of the season fer sure.

More weekend sports blogging

They say that revenge is a dish best served cold. I say that schadenfreude is a dish best served in small portions. So I watched the Redskins failed to score on fourth and goal from the one, and then watched Detroit march 99 yards for a touchdown, and now I've got a tummy ache because in that ten minutes of airtime I like, gobbled down a whole year's worth of schadenfreude in one sitting.

Friend, brother in Christ and colleague in ministry Bill from Clemmons NC was taunting me a while back because of a dearth of N.C. State posts on this blog. But why blog about N.C. State when it's so much more fun blogging about the Tarheels? So here's a very special link to Tarheel football highlights from over the weekend. How do you spell overrated? U-N-C.

OK, Bill, just for you, a little N.C. State football blogging. But be warned, you better "get your grown man on" before you watch this:

How to Cope

State Fans Nation has some ideas for coping with a fifth Tarhole national championship. If you'd rather not click through, here's a clean summary:

1. Tip your hat. They did win six straight by double digits. And fortunately they didn't win a single game by going to the four corners, or with Rashad McCants. That makes it a tiny bit easier.
2. Take heart! As bad as you feel, Coach K feels even worse. A disconsolate K is enough to strangely warm the heart of all of us who hate that piddly little Methodist finishing school in the Durham County woods.
3. Since Tarhole fans, like Cowboy fans or Yankee fans, are a dime a dozen, you probably know one or two who aren't absolute jerks. Hey, you might even know someone who actually went there! (Bill? Sadly, No!) In this case, "Rejoice with those who rejoice," and gently remind them that next up is football season, and the much hyped Butchy Butch is 0-2 against the Wolfpack.

There stands ever-cherished N.C. State

State Fans Nation wades into the Free Expression Tunnel kerfuffle. The comment thread is a mostly  intelligent and wide-ranging conversation on free speech, political correctness and, interestingly, campus beautification.

A little background: a railroad track bisects the N.C. State campus. There are three pedestrian tunnels that go underneath the tracks, and one, the Free Expression Tunnel, is available for spray-painting, to minimize illegal graffiti elsewhere on campus.  After the November elections, four students painted slogans threatening the life of President-elect Obama. The University whitewashed the tunnel (which, if I recall correctly, they also habitually do in the run-up to Parent's weekend), and University Police contacted the Secret Service. They investigated, but as far as I know, no charges were filed. Now the University system is considering whether to adopt a system-wide hate speech policy. The NAACP wants the students expelled, and diversity training mandated for incoming freshmen.

I don't think that inciting violence is protected speech, although the lack of charges indicates that the offensive graffiti wasn't a serious bid to inflict bodily harm on the President-elect. It was four bozos who shot their mouths off, and between the social opprobrium they've experienced on campus (Judging by the comment thread at State Fans Nation, N.C. State is a different place than it was 20 years ago),
and federal agents picking apart their hard drives, they have surely been taught a lesson.

I'm agnostic about expulsion, and I think that a hate speech policy is going to be awfully difficult to implement fairly. The laws of the state already outlaw communicating threats. Diversity training, however, is probably a good idea, if for no other reason than to save dumb people from the consequences of their own stupidity.

One commenter argued that the Free Expression Tunnel is an eyesore, and is less a forum for free speech than it is the one and only tool for the TKEs to round up enough guys during rush to have a decent pledge class (my paraphrase). They ought to get rid of the thing as the first step in beautifying the campus.

It's true. N.C. State is not all that easy on the eyes. The dormitories of west campus, where I lived for two years, exude all the collegiate charm of a Soviet apartment complex. I wound up my time at State in a central campus high rise that might have looked great in the opening credits of Good Times. State's most famous architectural landmark is Harrelson Hall which can only be described as a three story hat box on stilts. It oozes that gee whiz ugliness of the worst that post war architects managed to come up with. I spent a lot of time in the fluorescent glow of its windowless, warren-like rooms. State's Centennial Campus is only marginally better--it reeks of the soulless sterility of a suburban office park.

Abolishing the Free Expression Tunnel would only disburse the graffiti throughout the campus. They should keep it; people need to maintain a strong stomach that goes with tolerating free speech, and bozos who do what those four did last November need to be prepared for just about everyone, including federal agents, to come down on them in a counter-exercise of free speech.

But what to do to beautify the campus? It's amazing, really, that a university with an architecture and design school and a college of agriculture and life sciences can have a mishmash of uninspiring, if not downright ugly buildings, and pedestrian landscaping. Why can't more of the campus look like the view from the 1911 building?

Part of the problem is that N.C. State is on the edge of a city. It's not downtown, in which case no one would give a second thought to aesthetics. I mean, no one says VCU or Georgia State are ugly campuses, even though they are, because no one expects them to be beautiful. N.C. State is close to Pullen Park, and has enough green space to raise expectations.

But it sits astride a railroad track, for God's sake. That automatically limits you. And since it's not nestled in a forest like Duke, or in a small town like Chapel Hill, it winds up looking like what it is--that part of the city that got build in the 50s and 60s. Nasty.

Part of fixing up N.C. State has to do with fixing up Hillsborough Street which is really looking dumpy. I was last there in February, and while I didn't get mugged or propositioned, I didn't, you know, feel like throwing on ye old letter jacket and having a pint with me chums either. I was too busy trying not to trip over slabs of concrete sidewalk that looked like tectonic plates riding over each other.

One of my classmates here at Union-PSCE is convinced that the looks of the buildings tell you something about the values of the institution. He came here not only because, for a seminary, Union-PSCE has a sizable collection, but also because the library is drop-dead gorgeous. In a recession it's going to be a hard sell to ask for money for pretty stuff, beyond what you need for operating expenses, but the University really needs to start making the case to the legislature that if you want to be a top-flight research University, you can't look like a forlorn K-Mart shopping center. And the City of Raleigh needs to do its part as well.

Future's so bright I gotta wear shades

You don't have to be a bitter Wolfpack fan lighting up message boards everywhere to notice that the team tanked once the starters returned to the floor late in last night's game. Real journalists noticed too. It seems like half of Wolfpack nation wants to fire Sidney Lowe, and the other half wants to permanently bench McCauley and Costner, play the freshmen who want to win, and play for the future.

I'm with option two. You can't fire a coach after three seasons, unless there are rules violations. You need to give a man five years. I'm not afraid of playing on Thursday night in the ACC Tournament, and neither should any Wolfpack fan. They don't call it the Les Robinson Invitational for nothing. We've been there, done that, and survived. If we have to go there again this year in the hope of future success, then that's better than watching another year of on-court sulking by our alleged team leaders.

It could be worse. We could be looking up at Carolina in the standings, but we aren't.

Paging John Bunting

I thought I'd come out of blogging hibernation briefly just to tell all you Carolina fans to sit down and shut up.  You can have your Butchy-Butch Davis.  Tom O'Brien is the man.  O'Brien has started each of the last two seasons in a deep, deep hole, thanks to inheriting his predecesor's mess and a horrible streak of injuries, respectively.  But in both seasons the Wolfpack, under O'Brien's leadership, has finished far stronger than they've begun.  That's flat-out good coaching.  The man can get blood from a turnip.

So please, please, tell me again all about what Butch Davis did at Miami, and I'll tell you all about what Chuck Amato did at FSU.  And I'll point at the scoreboard.  You guys got "Butch-slapped" today. No ACC Championship game for you.  And watch out for Dook.  Y'all might not even be the second-best team in the state. 

Good mental hygeine, one step at a time

Yes, there was much to celebrate Saturday.  But what we can be most thankful for is the progress toward stability that EZU fans have made.  All week long they'd been suffering from delusions of grandeur about a BCS game.  Well, Saturday's loss was the equivalent of getting yours meds adjusted.  You're welcome, EZU fans.  We know as well as you do that three hours in front of the tube is a lot cheaper and less time-consuming than three weeks at Dorthea Dix or a new prescription for Seroquel or Risperdal. 

And here's a few post-game facts that you should cling to in case dark thoughts of a top-ten finish creep into the recesses of your collective mind:

• The Wolfpack is 16-10 all-time against the Pirates.
• State has beaten EZU three out of the last four games.
• Tom O'Brien is 2-0 against some coach named Holtz.

So stay focused on reality, EZU fans, whenever you're tempted to fly off into fantasy land.  Reality is:  we're still doing you a favor by scheduling you.