For this sports fan, January is the cruellest month, dashing hopes against the hardwood, brooding losses beyond expectations, mixing memory and desire into one tough highball that brushes me back from the metaphorical plate.
Driving home mid-December on Interstate-64 East, the trees without leaves like rows upon rows of silenced spectators, Virginia football’s four straight losses to end the season tasted sour in the mouth — like shocking yourself as a kid, that metallic smoothness coating something not quite right.
The fall semester had not gone as expected — in part because of the football team’s off-field sideshow last January — and after our last tailgate, cleaning the heap of beer cans and plastic cups and plates into a deep, black trash bag, I told myself, ‘You’re not just a football fan anymore; now, there’s basketball season.’ Pulling down last season’s football calendar, the tides of each churning season — what team except the Cavaliers would win their fourth-straight game on the road at Georgia Tech in October as a prelude to collapse — all dropped together suddenly into the din of pins collecting on the floor. I packed through the evening, rolling my ties for probably the last time, and headed east through a dimming blue light splashed against streaking orange and purple clouds.
Yet you ask — what better way to cure the college sports blues than Bowl Season? What dry spell cannot be quenched within the rhythm and regeneration of that festival of sponsored delights? Here, beer drips across the floor without apparent concern; early season losses and conference rivalry wins blur in meaning within the anxious fist of crushed potato chips.
Fight on State
Fight on State
Strike your gait and win
Victory we predict for thee
We’re ever true to you, dear old White and Blue —
‘You watch this; you have better luck.’
‘They play better when I iron upstairs.’
Unfriendly Pasadena, Misters Corso and Herbstreit have a bad case of Trojan gold and crimson, though they broadcast as the wisest men in Media America with a mascot. Here, they find the Rose Parade red, and the California Boys golden. Here, Mark Sanchez finds Everyone Over the Middle. Here is Ronald Johnson Wide Open. Here is a Big Ten Team built against the Run. Fear defeat through the air. Thank you, Joe Paterno; you must be careful these days. Afterward each Lion fixes his eyes before his feet, as so many have done before him. ‘Young Fellow, have you read about the new recruit? Or have we lost him already Brother!’
The couch presses toward the television performing the same SportsCenter for the fourth time this February night. Seven straight ACC losses in men’s basketball argue against the natural fit of the Hoo Crew T-shirt, framed against the navy blue of the couch, surrendering underneath the soft white flag of the comforter. Ticket stubs and coupons now unredeemable scatter across the dirty glass table; the roll-out banner has lost its tension and reflects the rest of the room at a slant. The scroll line of the screen repeats the score alert: North Carolina 76, Virginia 61. He expects less now, still holding up four fingers on each hand whenever a Cavalier stands at the free throw line.
‘Leitao needs more time. You cannot build a program in four years. How can success wax and wane so quickly? Can the women’s team pick up the slack? Is this a down year? What is that noise?’
The sound of the ball hitting nothing but net. Have you forgotten that already? What it felt like to compete in the ACC? To win on the road?
‘Georgia Tech gives us less and less to stand on the more and more they give away. But our play at Syracuse!’
I remember waiting for the page to reload after each foul, time out, precious second-chance shot, as Tennessee yielded on the road. The women understand this: Win the games you should and huddle, like children on Christmas morning, waiting for your name on Selection Sunday.
When we went to Raising Cane’s without the buy-one-get-one-free coupon, I said I could not decide what I wanted.
Hurry up please, it’s time.
The line grew behind me, and I said what I always thought.
You should try something else, he said.
If you don’t like it you can get on with it, I said.
Hurry up please, it’s time.
I can’t help it, I said, pulling a long face.
Just because you have always gotten that, he said, does not mean something else will not work.
Hurry up please, it’s time.
I don’t want to eat any of it, I said.
Don’t ruin a good night because of this team, he said.
The lights of Scott Stadium sulk: the chants and furies have faded; the grass grows in rampant splotches; there are no more airport bottles, no more sundresses. Police loiter about in the parking lot, and new construction keeps the merely curious from wandering past and grasping at something missing. Sweet bleachers; run clean routes deep into the hearts of the young, until the last “Good Ol’ Song” has been sung.
The Forgetful Fan drags his fingers along your tall, metal bars; your voices ring in his ears with the dull satisfaction of a bell. The rain slickens his jacket, and, dressed for your occasions in soft blue shirt and a subtle orange in the belt, he darkens into the hush between buildings. Grounds spreads out oblivious to the spectacle of National Signing Day: I, enshrined, Jefferson, hold Groh’s truths to be self-evident. All recruits are not created equal: Morgan Moses and Tucker Windle may have been endowed with extraordinary gifts, but Jameel Sewell just cannot make the deep pass. I, blessed with muted foresight, endure your drunken pleas for Mikell Simpson to find his swagger; however, let me tell you an obvious secret: Sean Singletary was an aberration. Well now that’s done, and I’m glad it’s over.
After the lights on the buses no longer read ‘Private,’ after the beat of slow feet across Emmet fade, after the last hot dogs simmer in the dumpster, there is not even solitude in the empty gymnasium. Where now is the second who spotted you? Where are those extra weights? There is exhaustion in the old pipes in Mem Gym; there are chairs holding down the floor of an empty pool; U-Hall echoes and echoes until, cracking, the unreal, old glory of Sampson and Staples breaks loose in jerseys hung high before their time is told.
What have we given; received; controlled? The passing surrender to feeling more than ourselves.
That Good Ol’ Song of Wahoo-Wa, we’ll sing it o’er and o’er ...
This sports column takes its form and some images from T.S. Eliot’s “The Waste Land.”
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