I’m a loser. I know this revelation comes as no surprise to those who read this column on a regular basis, however; in this case I am referring to the sports teams that I follow and not the well documented personal issues which often grace these pages.
Hokie fans, I understand that you are disappointed with the start of your football season. Virginia Tech has a very successful program helmed by one of the best coaches in the game, yet, by the editorial backlash from fans which appeared in the Roanoke Times after an upset loss to James Madison, you would think were on the eve of Armageddon. Such discord has to be earned by years of torture and disappointment, ask any Cubs fan.
Like most people, I developed my allegiances at an early age. In fact, I can trace my ill fated decisions back to the year 1969. Along with a few minor events such as the moon landing and Woodstock, 1969 birthed “The Miracle Mets,” Joe Namath and the Super Bowl Champion Jets and New York Knicks and their first franchise crown. Life was good for a ten-year old sports fan back then. Every time I turned around my team was parading down New York’s “Canyon of Heroes,” confetti whirling down lower Broadway as if Lindbergh had landed again. If I only knew what was to follow.
Remaining faithful to my teams, the years following the glory of 1969 were marked with near misses and the occasional championship to keep up my hopes. The Mets would win again in 1986, dealing a near death blow to long suffering Red Sox fans who were no stranger to agony. Unlike the Yankees, the Mets have more players who were in the Betty Ford Clinic than in the Hall of Fame. Still, I stick with them, shelling out good money for the Direct TV baseball package which allows me 162 games of heartburn.
My Knicks are a mess and have been for years. Lebron James opted for South Beach and Walt “Clyde” Frazier is selling hair coloring for men. Very sad. Sadder still, is my love/hate/cry relationship with the New York Jets. I willingly admit that my Jets obsession is un-healthy.
A frequent online visitor to Jetsfansanonymous.com, I seek support every Monday from those who share my pain. It has been forty-two years since the Jets were in a Super Bowl, the Israelites wandered in the desert and found the Promised Land in two years less time.
My license plate reads “JETSWIN,” because I didn’t have enough letters available to add “HARDLY EVER.”
Over the years I have destroyed two recliners while watching the Jets attempt to play football. When the Jets selected kicker Mike Nugent with their first pick in the 2005 NFL draft I registered my displeasure by throwing a shoe at the television. In true Jets fashion it (fortunately) missed.
This past week, they tried to throw some excitement my way – trying, yet failing to give the game to the hated Dolphins. Why do I do this to myself! Even their nickname -“Gang Green” is the only one in the NFL that cries for an amputation!
Last season my beloved Jets fell one game short of reaching the Super Bowl, a feat that sprang a somewhat dormant hope in my battered heart. This short lived euphoria disappeared before the season even started as, thanks to the fine folks at HBO, I could now watch my favorite team and our knuckle-head coach self-destruct once a week on “Hard Knocks.”
Will this cruelty never end? Forty-two years of re-building a franchise takes its toll on a man. I know that Rome wasn’t build in a day, in fact, it took several hundred years and that’s the trouble, I don’t have that much time!
Please take heart Hokie fans, I understand how you feel. Better times are coming, stick with your boys through thick and thin. I am certain that they will find college football’s Promised Land long before the Israelites found theirs.
Well, maybe.
By Jon Kaufman [email protected]