In our preseason picks article, I meant to put the usual gif that’s used at the beginning of every season but forgot. You know the one:
It’s a running joke. Every year, you know the pain is coming. You willingly sign back up knowing the kick in the crotch is inevitably coming. It’s an interesting bit of human nature where we can purposely deceive ourselves year in and year out into thinking that the pain we know with certainty will most certainly come may not, in fact, come THIS time.
But why?
What is it about sports specifically that causes hope to spring eternal? There has to be a gambling aspect of this. We’re rolling the dice thinking surely this time it’ll come up 7’s, I mean what are the odds I keep getting snake eyes??
If you’re an NC State fan, turns out those odds are quite great. Back in 2015, when the infamous “trouble with the snap” game happened, I thought, “hey at least NC State hasn’t lost a game like THAT before.” Now, I can no longer say that, because they’ve lost a game worse. It’s actually astonishing that in the past 20 years, 1,048 college football games have been played where a team had the ball and the lead with less than 10 seconds, and these are the only two where the lead changed hands and that team lost? I don’t see how that’s statistically possible, but here we are.
NC State continues to defy the odds, and all logic. The unanimous response around the country was, “how could this happen!??” There were several things they could have done in this situation, and that was the one thing NOT to do. But NC State fans know that the Wolfpack will always find a way. They will continue to invent new and inventive ways to lose games, in ways that have never happened before. If there’s even a possibility they can lose a game, they will do it in a way to rope you in just far enough to melt your frozen heart and have you believing that maybe this time it will be different, and yet it never is. Charlie Brown and Lucy with the football does not even do this relationship justice. Why can’t they use this same amount of energy to find new ways to WIN games? I have spent so many years of my life worrying about the travails of this school to which I am inextricably linked. I showed the final sequence to my family so they could console me and my whip-smart daughter asked me, “dad, why did you have to go here?”
Me, “I know, I have thought about this many times over the years. A lot of things would have been different, and much easier, if I wasn’t stuck rooting for this school.”
Her, “yeah, but it’s your canon event. You needed to go there so you could end up where you are with us today.”
This is the great part of having kids, they help keep you grounded and put things into perspective. All that has happened needed to happen. But does that mean it needs to continue to happen?
I will endure…I think
I don’t have a choice but to try and move on. But the losses stay with you, always. I won’t ever forget Philip Rivers attempting multiple QB sneaks in the Horseshoe. Or TA not being in (note: he was, in fact, in). Or TA again, fumbling the game-sealing first down vs Maryland [redacted] in Rivers’ final home game. And on and on it goes. And that’s even before you look at basketball, which has its own list of tragedies. We had that one fleeting moment of triumph in 2024 that we get to hold onto for all time.
I’ll continue to watch, but the pain never leaves. It only leaves scars that show the remnants of deep wounds. Many fans have dropped off over the years after feeling like the pain was too much to bear, and won’t be back. I have some friends that have basically said, “I’ve been on this train too long and it’s never pulling into the station so I’m just jumping off. Call me when they win.”
It’s really hard being a national laughing stock, though. I was going to provide a recap of all the posts from various national (and even international) outlets clowning on State. But I decided against it because it’s simply too painful. But that’s what I’m signing up for: the pain. For some, the pain has become too much and have chosen more positive aspects of life to focus on. I give them a lot of credit. I am equally envious and also judgmental of them. I’m happy you are focusing on parts of life that are more fruitful, but also I thought we were in this together.
There’s some unspoken drive in me that won’t let me jump off the train. I watched the Tuesday afternoon round 1 game between NC State and Louisville in the 2024 ACC tournament. Why would I bother watching that game? The team had done so poorly that they were relegated to essentially the conference tournament play-in game. There was nobody in the stands, most attendees for the conference tournament weren’t showing up until Thursday at least. And yet, I watched. Why?
Hope, and not wanting to be late to jump back on
I can admit that I have intense FOMO. I don’t like being left out. So the idea that NC State might start winning and I wasn’t there to see it would make me feel like a poser if I jumped back on the train once it got up to full speed. If you grew up in the 80s or 90s, you know there’s nothing worse than being called a poser. You weren’t there, so why should you get to enjoy it only during the good times?
This is obviously unfair, and folks can make whatever choices are best for them. I saw this play out first hand this summer when the Knicks went on their epic playoff run to the championship. So may fans came out of the woodwork that hadn’t watched the Knicks in years were now cheering as if they’d never left. And people who’d hardly ever watched any basketball in their lives were seen walking around midtown Manhattan with Jalen Brunson jerseys. Meanwhile, one of my good friends has been deep into watching every game his whole life. His thought is if you weren’t here on a Tuesday night in February to watch them play the Wizards then I don’t want you here now.
There has to be a medium ground there. I don’t know exactly where that medium ground is yet. But until I find it I’ll be here, watching the Wolfpack play against an absolute trap game vs App State. I am glad the Knicks got good so my daughter has an outlet from the pain I’ve transferred to her to have to grow up an NC State fan. But I worry for her sanity as well because it’s really hard to see your team win a championship in your youth and never win again. Who knows what the future will bring, but for her sake I hope she finds that medium ground and doesn’t envelop her life with pain waiting for that joy from the summer of 2026 to return. At least she can say she’s seen them win at the highest level once in life. However, many Mets fans were made in the fall of 1986 and have been waiting ever since to see them win again. The same can be said for NC State fans still dreaming about the spring of 1983, and many will be wistfully remembering March/April 2024 decades from now.
Until I find that medium ground of not being fully checked out while not being overly invested, I will be here. I will watch the random Tuesday night hoops game in February vs Boston College. It’s a switch I can’t turn off. I can’t just switch sides and decide to start rooting for Georgia or Ohio State, just because it would be more fun and an easier experience. I both wish I could and also don’t want to. At best I might pick up some side teams to root for, but they’ll have as deep a relationship as my day 1. I just wish we could have the nice things we see others enjoy a bit more frequently, that’s all. And by frequently, I mean less than every 2-3 decades. By that math we’ll be happy less than five times in our lifetimes, and that’s just depressing.