As the Dust Settles

I have now had several days to digest Saturday's carnage of a game as it relates to me as a blue goggled homer of a fan...



I have been a fan since childhood. As a young boy and teenager, I thrilled at the idea that the Cougars were coming for the Holiday Bowl every year to my hometown of San Diego. I even got to attend a few of these Holiday Bowls. My parents were at the game in 1980's Miracle Bowl. Because the game was televised on delay and it was late, I fell asleep. However, my parents got home just in time to wake me and tell me to watch the rest of the game. Then the magic started to happen that night. I have tons of precious memories as do many of you through the years.



I always held this unrealistic dream that BYU's sports could truly represent our church and that therefore they had some extra magic playing on the "Lord's team." Over the years, I have consciously learned to agree with others that rooting for BYU in sports is not mandatory for my salvation nor are they the perfect missionary program or church marketing arm. However, somehow deep down inside that little blue goggled boy in me I still had the dream that somehow they could be.



Over the years when bad games have happenned or bad off-field behaviors occured, I felt the wrench of frustration and disappointment because the team fell short of my expectations. Unfortunately, we have had some really bad games the last couple years. So for my own emotional health and sanity, I am finally going to take the blue goggles off.



This means I am going to lower my expectations and give up the illusion that BYU sports is connected to pure religion. This also means I am going to take the heaviest of passions I felt for BYU sports off the table and save it for real truths and ideals.



This does not mean I will stop rooting for BYU or giving up hope that they will succeed. I will still watch every game and still enjoy reading up about the Cougars.



I just cannot afford to get so caught up with the swing of emotions. It's not healthy for me. I can have high expectations for me and my behavior, but it's fruitless to do that for someone or something I have no control over.



As a side note, I have also been a San Diego Chargers fan and Padres fan. I expect them to do plenty of stupid things and commit plenty of blunders. But I still root for them and when they lose, I don't lose any sleep. I just move on until the next game. This is sort of how I plan to root for the Cougars now.



Kind of sad, but works for me.

http://www.cougarboard.com/board/message.html?id=7402367" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false; I think this post is by a former player. He makes good points. The question I have been asking myself is what can we do to help the team. I think lowering our expectations for the team and our OC is part of it. He makes a good point about paid services hyping the team for their person gain. That feeds into our expectations.



I also think we need to be less critical and show some patience. Hopefully the guys learn from this and learn how to adjust and win.



I saw an article somewhere that suggested a fast for the team. I think the author was not BYU affiliated. I am willing to do anything for the team.



PS I am still going to the OSU game Oct. 15. This is my team and I stand with them, perhaps alone.

Quite serendipitous. Thanks for sharing.

scott715 wrote:
http://www.cougarboard.com/board/message.html?id=7402367 I think this post is by a former player. He makes good points. The question I have been asking myself is what can we do to help the team. I think lowering our expectations for the team and our OC is part of it. He makes a good point about paid services hyping the team for their person gain. That feeds into our expectations.



I also think we need to be less critical and show some patience. Hopefully the guys learn from this and learn how to adjust and win.



I saw an article somewhere that suggested a fast for the team. I think the author was not BYU affiliated. I am willing to do anything for the team.



PS I am still going to the OSU game Oct. 15. This is my team and I stand with them, perhaps alone.

Thanks for linking this article. I think it is a good read, too. :)

scott715 wrote:
http://www.cougarboard.com/board/message.html?id=7402367 I think this post is by a former player. He makes good points. The question I have been asking myself is what can we do to help the team. I think lowering our expectations for the team and our OC is part of it. He makes a good point about paid services hyping the team for their person gain. That feeds into our expectations.



I also think we need to be less critical and show some patience. Hopefully the guys learn from this and learn how to adjust and win.



I saw an article somewhere that suggested a fast for the team. I think the author was not BYU affiliated. I am willing to do anything for the team.



PS I am still going to the OSU game Oct. 15. This is my team and I stand with them, perhaps alone.

That's a great link.. I think he's dead on about subscription services inflating expectations. If you take a step back and really look at this team, we're just not that great... yet. We get all pumped about guys like Apo.. I swear mostly because he's not a 5'10" white dude from Orem. The reality is that our team has decent talent but is young. Expectations need to be adjusted to reality. And teams like ND and TX still struggle despite having twice the talent we have.

BTW, I think his point on subscription services also applies to local free sports media (Jay Drew etc) as well as political media (see Fox News, Glen Beck, MSNBC, etc). To get ratings/make money they fuel our already-held beliefs and suspicions with skewed reporting...which creates a vicious cycle. but I digress.