Dumbfounded

My wife and step daughter are dumbfounded. They don't get it. Why do I bother to watch Texas play college football games? As they see it, I am not enjoying the experience.

Just last night, I was glued to the television as my beloved Longhorns were struggling to win a football game. I was dumbfounded at how inept my team was playing. How can a team with the ways and means of a powerhouse like Texas, play so poorly? What are these kids, human?

I do not enjoy it when they lose. I do not enjoy it when they win, but not by the odds makers in Las Vegas point spread prediction. I do not enjoy it when they play an over matched opponent and look mediocre winning the game. Why?

It has got me to thinking. What is it exactly that bothers me? Is it the potential of greatness unfulfilled or is it my unbalanced allegiance to a team, whose results which I cannot control, I illogically feel good or bad about?

When I was a student at Texas, I would attend home games and yell until I was horse and clap my hands until they were numb. For some reason, I felt I was able to will the team to victory by my fan-dumb. So, it is no surprise to me that I yell at the television set during games. My step daughter reminds me quite often that "they can't hear you!" and "will you stop!". My wife then chimes in with, "I don't know why you watch these games, you don't enjoy it." Yes I do.

It just appears that I am living and dying with each incomplete pass, each fumble, each missed tackle, each bonehead play call, each time perfection is not attained. And maybe I am. It's just not in my nature to passively sit in front of the television and act like I just got a lobotomy. In the end, I win exactly nothing.

To some men, a sports team that they follow becomes a small part of them. What the team does in some strange way reflects what they are or maybe what they wished they were capable of. Maybe in watching the possibility of something great happening each Saturday, we validate our humanity in realizing our limitations. Maybe my frustration is ultimately not with the team and their performance, but in my life and what I can or cannot control.