The cost of overinvesting
Losing is never fun, but when the devastation of a loss mixes with your unrealistic expectations, it can be costly.
The Daily’s Dillon Phillips shares a few material casualties that have occurred at his hand after an OU football loss.
Bedlam 2011 — Walmart Coffee Maker: $6
» I threw the coffee pot out the window, and then broke the coffee maker outside with a 9-iron.
OU-Texas ’08 — Magnavox MDC2300 DVD Player: $30
» It was already broken, so we dragged it behind my friend’s truck and then ran it over.
West Virginia ’07 — First Generation iPod Nano: $250
» This was already broken, too. It was actually recalled in 2011 for a defective battery that would overheat and sometimes cause the iPod to catch fire, so I guess I did it a favor.
Other than my immediate family, grandparents, dog, a few friends, Brand New and season two of “The Office,” there’s nothing in this world that I love more than OU football.
I honestly can’t remember a moment in my life when I was happier than right after Josh Heupel took his final knee on Jan. 4, 2001, and won the Sooners’ seventh national title.
That was my peak; I was 9.
Maybe that’s a sad thing to say. Maybe my priorities aren’t where they’re supposed to be. Maybe I need to stop relying on what 20-year-old kids do during a 60-minute game to determine how good of a weekend I’m going to have. But it’s still true.
When football starts, I’m wired in like Jesse Eisenberg in “The Social Network.” For four months, I take every loss like a prizefighter on his last legs takes a jaw-shattering hook or a rib-crushing body blow. I live vicariously through the successes and failures of a college football team.
But after the 2008 national championship game — of which we will not speak — I learned I needed to tone it down. I couldn’t expect OU to win a title every year and become irate to the point of violently cursing at Tim Tebow through a television screen if the team fell short.
So I tried to avoid high expectations to the point of pessimism. I tried to convince myself that each year would bring yet another two-loss season (think about that: How spoiled are we OU fans, complaining about two-loss seasons?), reminding myself that the odds of us winning a national title are 120-1(ish), after all.
But every year, I still believe in the back of my mind that this will be the year the Sooners bring another one home. Every time I look at a schedule in the offseason, I visualize a column of W’s to the right of each game and a crystal ball being passed around.
I can’t escape it.
So before the 2012 season kicks off, I’d like to share a little piece of advice with you: Don’t believe the hype.
Remember this time last year? OU was preseason No. 1 — poised to run the table and capture the program’s elusive eighth national championship.
ESPN camera crews were abuzz around campus documenting every practice, every meeting, every second of the coaches’ and players’ existence.
Each SportsCenter, we were shown an interview with a player, a sound bite from a coach or a clip from practice that all but shouted, “This is our time.”
OU fans had waited 11 long years, endured three excruciating losses in national championship games and witnessed, perhaps, the greatest quarterback and running back in OU football history pass through Norman — all without a national title.
But now, this was the year.
The “Chase for Eight” was in full swing, and I was sitting in the front row wearing crimson and cream and checking Stub-Hub daily for Sugar Bowl ticket prices.
I bought in.
How could I not have? The Sooners won their first five games, waffle-stomped Texas and precariously — in retrospect, foolishly — hit cruise control until an imminent one-versus-two showdown for what was sure to be the biggest Bedlam game in the rivalry’s 103-year history.
And then the Sooners lost. Then they lost again. And again.
In sports, there’s a theory that says teams gradually callous themselves against the agony of losing — that with each successive loss a team incurs, the next one hurts a little less.
And maybe that’s true. But I’m here to tell you as a fan, it’s horse you-know-what.
To expect a national title and receive a three-loss season and a trip to the Insight Bowl in its place is like ordering a steak at a nice restaurant only to have the waiter — who just so happens to be an angry Mike Tyson — bring you a cold, petrified McDouble and uppercut you in the stomach for not scarfing it down like it was the most delicious thing you’d ever eaten.
There are few things more difficult as a fan than keeping your feet firmly grounded in reality and staying away from the hype. It’s too easy to get caught up in the excitement, slap on some crimson-colored shades, drink the Kool-Aid and become another member of the brain-dead hype-monster hoard.
But trust me — it hurts to go all in and lose. It really, really hurts.
I know — I do it every season.
Dillon Phillips is a journalism junior and assistant sports editor for The Daily. You can follow him on Twitter at @DillionPhillips_.
