I've been heavy on information, and I want to do some narrative here. I want to explain why all this matters.
I was born a true son. Missouri born, Missouri raised. I can remember when I was young how terrible football was at Mizzou. It was embarrassingly bad. I don't have any specific memories of any games, I just remember that feeling you felt watching them. We always had basketball though... I remember evenings running errands with my dad listening to Norm's teams play on the radio. The name Jason Sutherland being called over the airwaves is something that will stick in my brain until the day I die. I heard it that many times.
In high school, I went through a finding myself phase. I didn't like how Mizzou and KU fans argued all the time, so I would attempt to stay out of it. I found a love for Hawaii in that period of time, a combination of playing as them on an old Playstation March Madness game and the emergence of Timmy Chang and Ashley Lelie. Always rooting for my Mizzou first, just trying to pretend I wasn't one so I could avoid arguments. I guess that says more about me than anything else... I just want to be left alone for the most part. The black & gold always ran through my veins though. I'll never forget watching Kansas lose to Bucknell from a hotel room in St. Louis with my friend Steve, and the ensuing celebration. There is also the memory of watching Hakeem Warrick swat away a last second shot from Nick Collison in the National Championship game. It's funny how a Mizzou fan's memories focus more on the failures of KU than our own successes at times.
Sure, there's the end of the Norm era I remember. I remember watching from HS Classrooms as Kareem Rush and Quinn Snyder's Tigers went on a Sweet 16 run. I remember the names and the moments. Christian Moody missing two free throws with no time left to force overtime in a game we eventually won. The emergence of the football era even. Watching Brad Smith & Mizzou lose to Troy from a grainy TV that barely got reception out in the boondocks of Lawson, MO. Then Brad Smith doing the impossible to lead us back against South Carolina in the Independence Bowl that saved Gary Pinkel's job. Sodd Reesing. Chase Daniel's Heisman finalist season. That Oklahoma State football game that drove me to drinking. Gahn McGaffie. Sure, I remember every single one of those.
It doesn't matter until you lived it.
A lot of fans get that through attending the school. I never had the grades to go to Mizzou. I probably could've had I taken college seriously the first time, but I flunked out. I never got that experience. I'm jealous of everyone that does. There's the term sidewalk fan, someone who never went to the school. I don't consider myself one of those. I have had a completely different way of living it. Two years ago, I was diagnosed with Depression and an anxiety disorder. I couldn't function most of the time. I would have panic attacks so bad I couldn't go to class, and I ended up failing an entire two semesters because of the stranglehold these illnesses had on me. I went to therapy twice a week, but it didn't help. I ended up missing a lot of those meetings because of my anxiety. I couldn't sleep at night because I'd get so worked up, and often considered suicide. I would sleep all day because I just didn't want to get up. I developed a very severe drinking problem from it. I remember my therapist one day saying something to me before summer started, "find something you enjoy, and focus on it."
I don't enjoy a lot of things. I couldn't do my music living in small apartment buildings, and I was 400 miles away from home and the outdoors stuff I enjoyed. My focus became my sports team. I remember one of my darkest times was right before the Mizzou-Oklahoma homecoming game last year. I was really bad at that point, but when that game went final, it was like I had an entire new life. My fandom matured as well, I enjoyed the wins more, but the promise of more kept the losses from getting to me. It was my hope, the thing that kept me going. If they could come back from a loss, so can I. It's gotten me a long way. The end of last year's basketball season was really hard on me, watching the guys "quit." I don't know if they did or not, but it looked that way. That was tough to watch, to watch them lose the hope they helped build in me. However, the promise of next year kept me going. We had a good football season, I got back into school and didn't fail. My life has improved as Mizzou has. Then, there was this year's basketball team. There was hope that it'd be decent, new coach... no Lawrence "Party Starter" Bowers. They might make the tournament is what everyone said. We all know how this has turned out. And I've felt better than I've ever felt before. It's like I've been given a new lease on life, just through the HOPE that these kids who are younger than me, and I've never met have instilled in me. You might think it's not healthy, or it makes no sense. I don't need to make sense of it. I feel it. I am a new person.
College sports saved my life.
I was born a true son. Missouri born, Missouri raised. I can remember when I was young how terrible football was at Mizzou. It was embarrassingly bad. I don't have any specific memories of any games, I just remember that feeling you felt watching them. We always had basketball though... I remember evenings running errands with my dad listening to Norm's teams play on the radio. The name Jason Sutherland being called over the airwaves is something that will stick in my brain until the day I die. I heard it that many times.
In high school, I went through a finding myself phase. I didn't like how Mizzou and KU fans argued all the time, so I would attempt to stay out of it. I found a love for Hawaii in that period of time, a combination of playing as them on an old Playstation March Madness game and the emergence of Timmy Chang and Ashley Lelie. Always rooting for my Mizzou first, just trying to pretend I wasn't one so I could avoid arguments. I guess that says more about me than anything else... I just want to be left alone for the most part. The black & gold always ran through my veins though. I'll never forget watching Kansas lose to Bucknell from a hotel room in St. Louis with my friend Steve, and the ensuing celebration. There is also the memory of watching Hakeem Warrick swat away a last second shot from Nick Collison in the National Championship game. It's funny how a Mizzou fan's memories focus more on the failures of KU than our own successes at times.
Sure, there's the end of the Norm era I remember. I remember watching from HS Classrooms as Kareem Rush and Quinn Snyder's Tigers went on a Sweet 16 run. I remember the names and the moments. Christian Moody missing two free throws with no time left to force overtime in a game we eventually won. The emergence of the football era even. Watching Brad Smith & Mizzou lose to Troy from a grainy TV that barely got reception out in the boondocks of Lawson, MO. Then Brad Smith doing the impossible to lead us back against South Carolina in the Independence Bowl that saved Gary Pinkel's job. Sodd Reesing. Chase Daniel's Heisman finalist season. That Oklahoma State football game that drove me to drinking. Gahn McGaffie. Sure, I remember every single one of those.
It doesn't matter until you lived it.
A lot of fans get that through attending the school. I never had the grades to go to Mizzou. I probably could've had I taken college seriously the first time, but I flunked out. I never got that experience. I'm jealous of everyone that does. There's the term sidewalk fan, someone who never went to the school. I don't consider myself one of those. I have had a completely different way of living it. Two years ago, I was diagnosed with Depression and an anxiety disorder. I couldn't function most of the time. I would have panic attacks so bad I couldn't go to class, and I ended up failing an entire two semesters because of the stranglehold these illnesses had on me. I went to therapy twice a week, but it didn't help. I ended up missing a lot of those meetings because of my anxiety. I couldn't sleep at night because I'd get so worked up, and often considered suicide. I would sleep all day because I just didn't want to get up. I developed a very severe drinking problem from it. I remember my therapist one day saying something to me before summer started, "find something you enjoy, and focus on it."
I don't enjoy a lot of things. I couldn't do my music living in small apartment buildings, and I was 400 miles away from home and the outdoors stuff I enjoyed. My focus became my sports team. I remember one of my darkest times was right before the Mizzou-Oklahoma homecoming game last year. I was really bad at that point, but when that game went final, it was like I had an entire new life. My fandom matured as well, I enjoyed the wins more, but the promise of more kept the losses from getting to me. It was my hope, the thing that kept me going. If they could come back from a loss, so can I. It's gotten me a long way. The end of last year's basketball season was really hard on me, watching the guys "quit." I don't know if they did or not, but it looked that way. That was tough to watch, to watch them lose the hope they helped build in me. However, the promise of next year kept me going. We had a good football season, I got back into school and didn't fail. My life has improved as Mizzou has. Then, there was this year's basketball team. There was hope that it'd be decent, new coach... no Lawrence "Party Starter" Bowers. They might make the tournament is what everyone said. We all know how this has turned out. And I've felt better than I've ever felt before. It's like I've been given a new lease on life, just through the HOPE that these kids who are younger than me, and I've never met have instilled in me. You might think it's not healthy, or it makes no sense. I don't need to make sense of it. I feel it. I am a new person.
College sports saved my life.
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