The Eyes of Texas

Sports are cruel.  I tried to wait until the end of the Texas game to post.  I tried.  But I am at the mercy of the Texas Longhorns...and Notre Dame's Fighting Irish who just keep fighting. With the game in overtime, my husband is pounding the couch, my fourteen-year-old daughter is holding on to hope, and I am splitting my attention between my blog and the game because I can't take it. The stress is too much.

Every time I watch sports, I wonder what the heck I'm doing with my time.  I am putting my happiness at the mercy of people over whom I have no control whatsoever. Like so many other Americans, I put on my NCAA-approved shirt as if that has an impact, as if my failure to don the right colors will make any difference to the outcome.  The saddest part is that I harbor some slim belief that my burnt orange fashion matters.  If I didn't throw on a UT shirt, I would live with the guilt that my failure to change shirts was the decisive factor.  Don't ask me to explain the games of the past few years that the Horns have lost while I've diligently kept the UT shirts cycling through the laundry so that they will be ready for the next Saturday.

Despite the uncertainty, the anxiety, and the utter lack of control, I have waited for this season.  The eyes of Texas, or at least of one little Texan, are on me.  My daughter has adopted the Longhorns, and these games mean something to her.  When asked to write an essay about a family tradition for her middle school English class, she didn't write about the holidays or family vacations or game nights; she wrote about going to UT games every year.  Her essay was lovely - chock full of sensory details and personal reflection - made my little English teacher heart proud. 

Sadly, last year we didn't uphold that tradition. For the second season in a row, UT was struggling and we found plenty to fill our weekends without trying to find just the right weekend when the weather would be nice and the traffic to Austin would be light (i.e. never). But this year we'll bring the tradition back.  A losing season doesn't matter; family time does. As long as she counts the games as valuable memories, we will make the trek down 35 to see the Longhorns play. 

Full disclosure: I didn't even go to UT; I married into the team.  Trinity University, my alma mater, has a division III team that has had its own successes, like the year the team beat the Millsaps College Majors by throwing fifteen lateral passes to score a touchdown.  Here's the drawn-out mess of a play in all its glory:

When I was in college, I could walk down to the games and waltz in free of charge, but I never did.  I was working in the theater or studying or sleeping in. The first time I attended a big college football game, I was 30.  And it was awesome - the noise, the chants, the amped up atmosphere. How had I missed the greatness of this?  I easily jumped into fandom, and I arrived in time to relish the Vince Young years and the National Championship.

Despite all that, part of me always feels like a fraud, like I'm playing some part.  Even now, when I finally understand the game and know the top 25 teams, I feel like I'm just along for the ride, but I'm OK with that because the roller coaster ride of football is wildly fun, and the fact that I DON'T have control is half the fun.  So much of my stress comes from things I feel like I'm supposed to control - my children's well-being, my own health, my professional success.  Investing in something I can't fix offers some weird sense of relief.  

Most importantly, as long as my daughter invests in the games, fights through her cold this weekend to stay upbeat and cheer the team on, learns the players and the plays, and snuggles up between my UT-loving husband and me to watch the game, I will keep watching.  I will cheer and sing the fight song and celebrate an exhausting win like the double overtime win the Longhorns just nabbed tonight. Hook 'Em!