There’s a moment during every championship run when you – the fan – start to believe. Sometimes it happens at the end of the regular season; more often it happens during the post season. It is at this moment when you get a pit in your stomach and think to yourself, “we’re going to actually do it this year. We’re actually going to win.” You start to believe. You start to understand that your team has the pieces in place to go out there and win the biggest games down the stretch. Your team is talented, on a hot streak, healthy, the ball is bouncing their way. You start to believe.
Short of romantic encounters of lust, love, and everything in between, actually believing in your team is the most vulnerable we, as humans, get. Too often when you believe, you are let down because, when you believe in your team, there is always at least one other team out there that has fans believing in them, too. It’s the worst part of the season when you start believing in your team. When you start believing in your team, you start expecting your team to win. Consequently, when they do not, when they let you down, when your beliefs were nothing but hollow pipe-dreams, the once-pit in your stomach becomes a grapefruit, sitting there, weighing you down like an incus. When you get crushed like that, and when it happens time and again, you train yourself to wait and wait and wait some more until you start believing. It’s a dangerous thing to expect your team to win.
Bill Russell knew how to avoid the hangovers
After a championship season, fans forget what it’s like to not believe. They believe at the end of the season and through the final game. Then, they believe in retrospect some more during the off season, basking in the glory of believing correctly. They hear that the team is focused; concentrating on the future, not the past; going to sober up before the regular season starts; walking hard but never forgetting the big stick. And when the first regular season comes around, they say they have erased the previous season’s memory from their heads, but we all know that – even if just for this season – they believe they pass the torch at the Super Bowl not opening day.
But at some point in the season – it’s nearly inevitable – you remember what it’s like to not believe. You remember that there are 32 teams out there (or 30 as the case may be), 20 of which (or 22 or 14 as the case may be) will not make the playoffs. You remember that you need health and luck and talent and referees and good timing on your side to help you along. If one of those pieces is missing, your season’s future is jeopardized. ”Don’t ride the emotional roller coaster,” your coach will tell you. But it doesn’t help. With every loss, you foresee doom; and with every win, you start wondering what the ring will look like this year. You start to internalize that it’s a long season with twists and turns and uphills and downhills and no shortage of bumpy roads. Let the other guys believe in their teams this year, you think. It’s an albatross you don’t want, not this year, not yet. You’re left wondering how expectations can change so quickly and why dynasty isn’t passed on in the genetic makeup of the team.
At long last, you get it. The core may be intact but it’s a new team in a new season. More than half the games have been played and the playoff picture is rapidly coming into focus. Your team is doing exactly what it’s supposed to be doing, waiting until the last possible moment to play their best ball, getting the injuries out of the way now, making fans doubt the very heart of the team they not-so-long-ago bragged about at weddings and bar mitzvahs, and seeing to it that right when you least expect it, when your radar is barely beeping, when the ball can’t bounce in any more wrong directions…you start to believe in them all over again.
Get me my hat, Steeler fans. The ride has just begun.
