Just hold on, everyone who knows me, this is going to make sense. This title is so out of my character that I really can’t even believe I’m writing this and you probably can’t either but just trust me on this one. First, take a trip down memory lane with me.
For most of my life, the South Carolina Gamecocks (my beloved team of destiny, not choice) were bad. I don’t mean “6-6” bad either. I mean “1-10 followed by 0-11” bad. Arkansas fans think they know what bad is. Tennessee fans think they know what bad is. Nobody really knows what bad is until you tear down the goalposts after beating New Mexico State. That’s not a joke. That really happened.
Needless to say, we had very little to hang our hats on in South Carolina. Clemson beat us regularly, we had only won three bowl games ever, and our “tradition” was basically built around being great fans for a bad team. We were starving for a winner. We wanted our team to be competitive more than anything in the world; 8-4 might as well have been 12-0 in our eyes. Then, as if sent from above, something incredible happened: Steve Spurrier showed up. Suddenly we had hope, and slowly, but surely, we got better, and better and better.
Fast forward to now: we’ve been a consistent top 10 team for several years, we’re respected by everyone, and we’ve had three straight 11-win seasons. This is the best period in the history of our program. Expectations have been risen to an almost laughable level considering our very limited history. So as I sat in the Village last Thursday night and angrily watched us get pummeled by Texas A&M, it suddenly hit me:
I’ve gotten spoiled. 8-4 is no longer good enough. If we lose to good teams I’m still angry, because I feel like we should have won. On the one hand, these expectations are a good thing they’re a sign you’ve tasted greatness and they drive you to be better.
But on the other hand, consider what just a little bit of success did to my head. I expect wins. I am devastated by losses.
Wins over Florida, Georgia and Tennessee don’t feel quite as good as they used to. Losses to those same teams hurt 10 times worse than they used to. My entire psyche of fan-hood was distorted by a few good years. And during the second half of that Texas A&M game (nightmare), it finally hit me: I needed this to happen. I needed to be brought back to reality. I needed us to lose a little bit. It hurts, but at the end of the day, my fandom will benefit from it. I don’t ever want to be one of those fans who only cheers when his team is good. I despise those people. Sadly, that’s exactly the road I was heading down. Once it finally hit me in that second half that I needed to accept what we are this year, I felt a calm come over me. We aren’t Alabama or Oregon or Ohio State. We are South Carolina and I’m proud of that.
So to all you fans out there, hear these words: your team will lose at some point. Accept it and love your team that much more because of it.
Don’t be a bandwagon fan. Sometimes it takes dealing with defeat to find the true depths of your allegiance.
…Losing still sucks though.
