The Ravens really let me down this year when they lost to the Colts two weeks ago. The game was so boring and they weren't playing like they wanted to win. Most Baltimore fans despise the Colts because they used to be ours way back before they were in Indianapolis. The Colts actually haven't made it to the Super Bowl at all since they left Baltimore, and most Baltimore fans seem to want it to stay that way. So it was quite a disappointment to my husband when I told him yesterday that I was rooting for the Colts to defeat the Patriots.
I have two reasons for this choice. First, it gets boring to me to see the same teams win all the time. Going into last night's game, the Patriots were 12-1 in the playoffs and they were probably expecting to make it 13-1. When it was 21-6 at halftime, I think most of the rest of us expected the Patriots to make it 13-1, too. Yawn. My second reason for wanting the Colts to win is even more simple: I like Peyton Manning. He seems like a nice, down-to-earth kind of guy on top of being a good quarterback. He's never made it to the Super Bowl before, and I really wanted him to have that chance simply because he seems like a good guy to me. When the Colts pulled out an amazing win last night, Peyton was smiling his all-American smile, and I felt so happy for him. I know Baltimore can't forgive the Colts for leaving, but I don't see how people can cheer against Peyton Manning.
Last night became a night of firsts. As I already indicated, last night marked the first time that Peyton Manning has earned the right to be in the Super Bowl and the first time for the Colts since they left Baltimore. The Colts also set a new play-off record for a come back since they were behind by 15 points and managed to come back and win. In addition, when the Bears won, their coach Lovie Smith was set to become the first African American head coach ever to get to the Super Bowl. Then the Colts won and now we will have two teams with African American coaches playing each other in the big game. So as someone who gets bored with the same old, same old, I have a lot to celebrate now in the world of football.
I have mentioned on here before that I was born and raised to be a Nittany Lion fan even though I did not go to school there myself. The past few football seasons have been rough to say the least for Penn State, but this year was more exciting. They finished their regular season 11-1 and ended with the number 3 rank in the nation. This season, Joe Pa's best in 11 years, caused fans like me to excitedly repeat "we're back!" over and over again as Penn State racked up the victories. Their amazing record this year earned them a place in last night's Orange Bowl match against the ACC champion, Florida State.
I have to say, this year I missed the days when all the bowl games were over by New Year's day. The fact that last night's game was on a work night meant that I knew I would not be able to stay up for the whole game and expect to function with a 5:30 am alarm. So I turned the TV off at the end of the 3rd quarter when Penn State was only leading by one and the score was identical to what it was at halftime. Little did I know what I was missing by turning the TV off at that point. Apparently, despite and even because of the low scoring, the became one of the most exciting games in recent history. The coaches overall records were close, and even if Penn State had a better season this year, both teams came out ready to win. The game went into triple overtime and didn't end until 1am when Penn State scored a field goal that put the score at 26-23.
Naturally, I am happy that Penn State pulled through, but I'm sad that I went to bed and missed all the fun. Before the game, one reporter asked Joe Paterno and Bobby Bowden if they planned to retire after this season. Joe Pa said no way. He said that as long as he can coach, he will. Last year, people, including the University president, asked him to retire and he told them that he would retire when he was good and ready and that time has not yet arrived. Only a legend like Joe Paterno could tell his boss to take a hike and not get fired. And I'm sure last night's exciting victory pushed his retirement time back even further. He's already 79 years old and has coached at Penn State for 40 years, just over half of his life. His competitive spirit is still kicking, as he proved last night when he yelled at the officials and led his team through a game where at no point either time was ahead by more than a touchdown.
I don't lose well. I don't like to lose, and I don't often lose gracefully. When I was growing up, the game Monopoly was actually banned in my household because of the level of stress it created in my entire family when the game wasn't going my way. I am a rare breed of person who would actually cry hysterically like the world was coming to an end if on any given day anyone in my family was more successful than me at Monopoly. This characteristic led to high levels of tension between me and my also ultra-competitive father. It also, however, led to an understanding between us. My competitve nature is what drove me to push myself so hard in school. I wanted to be the best at everything. My father knew this about me, and instead of pushing me harder, he'd encourage me to back off when I was setting the bar unrealistically high.
But in spite of my father's best efforts, some things never change. I am no longer a 10-year old girl crying over Monopoly; now, I am a 27-year old woman who can barely contain her tears when the team of 14- and 15-year old girls that she coaches loses. Especially in games like tonight when we lost to a team we should have beaten. We lost tonight because my team played awfully. Even my best players who haven't had a bad game all season looked terrible tonight. I tried my best to boost them up during the desperate time-out that I called and during halftime. But my best efforts were to no avail. I could not play the game for them, and I ran out of things to say to make them play better. So after we lost the game in an overtime that we shouldn't have even gone to if my team had been playing at their potential, I found myself struggling to muster some composure so that my frustration with my team and ultimately with myself as a coach would not come wailing out of me the way it so often wailed out of me when I was sitting around a board game with my family. See, while I recognize that my team did not play their best, what followed me off the field was a frustration that stemmed from that same self-competition that my father tried to soften when I was a student. How could we lose to a team who is clearly less skilled than us? What did I as a coach do wrong for it to come this with only one game left in the season? I wasn't upset with my girls, I was upset because I felt that I must not have done enough. The team's failure was not theirs, it was mine.
When I stop for a moment I realize that almost unfathomable level of arrogance that I must have in order to take such responsibility on myself. Arrogance was a trait I often sneered at in my father, but maybe it is the same in me. I set the bar so high that I must on some level be deluded into thinking I am actually capable of reaching it. Could it be that my desire to win actually has root in some belief that I am capable of winning at all? Or, instead of arrogance, is it the opposite--do I simply see no value in myself beyond outward success? It's as if I push myself so hard in order to prove to myself--even more than to everyone else--that I am worthy of life. Since self-confidence has never been my strong suit, I'm more inclined to view my competitiveness in the latter, almost more pathetic way. Without an inner belief that I am worthy, I need the outward acknowledgement to motivate myself to keep going.
So then the counselor in me asks how do I address the competitiveness in myself? Do I treat the behavior and ignore the roots hoping that by changing the behavior, I will sever the roots? Or, do I seek to destroy the roots in the hope that the behavior change will follow? Regardless of the methodology and/or ideology that I subscribe to, I realize that I must change. As a 27-year old, I need to learn how to handle failure with Audrey Hepburn-like grace. Crocodile tears over a loss are no longer cute, they're immature. Success, after all, is not about never falling; it's about how well you pick yourself up after a fall. That is cliche for the sheer reason that it is true. Beyond the immaturity aspect, my competitiveness is bad for my health. I am alredy half-convinced that my stomach problems the past two days are due to an ulcer I've developed over the course of this field hockey season because I get so tense when we're not winning by several goals. I need to change if I'm going to live to see 65 or even just next field hockey season. Maybe losing is good for me if I treat it as a life lesson. I need to learn humility, and I need to learn that I am valubale within more than without. If these are lessons that only losing can bring, perhaps I should be a grateful loser instead of a sore one.
Yesterday after church, John and I went to Champps in Columbia near where we live to watch our Ravens in what we hoped would be their second victory of a thus far disappointing season. We sat for three and a half hours in front of a big screen TV that broadcast the complete travesty of game that yesterday's match turned out to be. Prior to the game, both the Ravens and the Lions were 1-2. We thought we stood a fair chance of winning. But then we started racking up the fouls. One by one by one until we came one short of the NFL record for the most fouls ever in a single game. Most of the fouls were easily preventable--holding and unsportsmanlike conduct. We even got two of our players ejected from the game for their treatment of the officials. By the end of the game when it was obvious that the Ravens had no chance of a comeback, I was actually rooting for them to break the foul record so we could say we at least did something right. But apparently we can't even foul well. While I certainly agree that one of the Lions' supposed touchdowns was questionable, I do not think that the refs started out the game with malice towards the Ravens. But after so many fouls and such dishonorable behavior, it's not completely incomprehensible to think that the officials' eyes might have blurred. I love my Ravens, but we were acting undoubtedly foolish yesterday. I understand that losing can be frustrating, but they were only making matters worse for themselves yesterday. During one play, they got two penalities that added up to 30 yards. 30 yards makes a big difference in a football game, espcially for a team that has never been strong offensively. Even when they weren't fouling, they seemed to frequently pass the ball to the Lions making the Lions' job that much easier with the high number of turnovers.
At least Navy and Penn State are doing well this year. Penn State remains undefeated after beating Ohio State on Saturday. They now have their highest ranking in 6 years, which, of course, will only fuel Joe Pa's fire ensuring that he continues to coach no matter how old and senile he seems to be to the rest of the world. This season is so far only proving his point that he's still got it somewhere even if whatever it is has been lying dormant for the past several years. Navy is not undefeated, but John and I enjoyed watching them pull ahead of Air Force with a field goal with 5 seconds remaining in their game this Saturday. Since we have Navy season tickets this year, we sat in the drizzle to watch that game instead of the climate-controlled Champps where we sat the next day to watch the Ravens embarrass themselves.
Autumn is my favorite season. I am envigorated by the crisp mornings and clear-sky, low-humidity afternoons. In Maryland, the low-humidity and bright blue skies provide an unmistakable sign that the sluggish days of summer are coming to an end and that exciting changes are in the air. For those of us in education, the changes include a refreshing and energetic new school year as well as the changes in atmosphere. In the fall, different colors adorn the treetops and different clothes move to the front of the closet.
This year for me, the fall also means coaching field hockey. The primary reason I volunteered to coach this year was not so that I could get to know students on different grounds or so that I could feed my competitve streak; I wanted to coach so that I could be outside. I played field hockey in high school, but I don't remember my team's record as much as I remember being outside every afternoon during this glorious seasonal trasformation. Longing for those couple hours a day when I "had" to be outside is what inspired me to volunteer to coach a sport this fall.
Even knowing why I signed up, when coaching first began this year I found myself drained by the time committment. My lazy Saturday mornings now required me to get up and hold practice when I'd rather be in bed. My weekday evenings have been filled with games and practices that keep me away from my own workout at the gym and impair my adjustment to marriage as well as limiting my social life outside of marriage.
But now, in spite of the time committment, I'm finding joy in this job. My team's record is not outstanding. We're 4 and 2 right now. Loss number 1 was our first game which happened to fall the Tuesday after Labor Day when my team was still half-asleep from the three-day weekend. Loss number 2 came this Saturday during sudden death overtime when the other team scored before us. At the end of that game, my girls were in tears because they so badly wanted to win. We sort of made up for it yesterday with a 12-0 victory over another team.
We have five games left, but regardless of how our record looks at the end of the season, I hope that my girls will take some of the memories with them that I carry with me--memories of blue skies, crisp autumn air, and changing leaves; memories that conjure up feelings of excitement and fun each time fall arrives, even when the game of field hockey itself is a distant memory.