Tough day in sports

Yesterday was a rough day for the sports fans in my life.

The #1 ranked Crimson Tide lost for the first time in 20 straight games in a surprise upset to South Carolina.

Later last night, the Twins lost a third play-off game to the Yankees, bringing an end to their season.

Talk about a bummer day.

Except that we had the pleasure of cheering my younger cousin to victory, who played in his final varsity high school soccer game last night.  His team won a nail-bitter with two spectacular goals in the last 20 seconds of overtime.  The whole extended family was there in team colors with a giant sign for him.  We are good at embarrassing, er, supporting each other.

Others have written far more eloquently than I can about the way favorite sports teams bring fans to tears of joy or sadness.  While I was never a die-hard groupie growing up, my dad and brother are Twins fans par excellence.  Then I married a man who, for 5 months of the year, lives and breaths Alabama football.  We listen to the Alabama radio station online to hear the running commentary during the week.  We have found every free means known to man to view the games on internet, iphone or tv during the season (which is harder than you might think when you live in Big 10 country).  The whole family starts getting nervous for the game by Thursday night.  T combs the blogs for the inside scoop before the game.  The kids know where to find their shakers and are ready with their cheers come game time.

And you know what?  I love it.  When T sits down to watch the game on game day, I am right there with him, wishing we were at the stadium.  And yesterday, I have to admit I was not only sad for Alabama and crushed for my guy who had to watch his team lose, I was rather sullen myself.

As we watched the Twins lose later that night with the rest of my family, my dad wondered out loud:
"Man, here I am pulling my hair out over a bunch of millionaires who are losing a play-off game.  Makes you wonder at what point you have become too invested in a team."

There is some truth to my dad's observation.  For instance, we have banned post-losing-game bad moods in our house (didn't need to worry about that much last year in an undefeated season).  But as I have learned through loving T, there is something special about the bond between sports fans and their teams.  And this weekend I am glad to have one.