It’s all my guidance counselor’s fault, really.
This whole mess. The struggle to forge an identity with a bond with a school. It’s the guidance department’s fault.
Eleven years ago I was a senior in high school. Somewhat precocious, somewhat arrogant, and somewhat curious. I had fairly good admission scores, grades, etc., etc.. Did I have any clue where I wanted to further my education?
No. And no one was there to really advise me. Not one person. I heard too much about all my potential, and not enough about the importance of (a) school name recognition in the real world, and (b) the lifelong bond with an alma mater’s athletic teams.
All I heard was that I should go where I wanted. What I needed was someone to say, Hey, Einstein, shut up for a minute. With your grades, and if you really aren’t ready to travel far away – you need to apply at Northwestern. That’s it. End of story.
But I didn’t. I poked around. Drake. Arkansas. Iowa. Iowa State. And my eventual alma mater, Simpson College. I didn’t consider Northwestern. Or even Missouri. If I really wasn’t ready to trek thousands of miles away, and try my hand at a journalism degree from Syracuse, Duke, NYU, UCLA, or Stanford – then I needed someone to say: Mister Faded Glory. Listen. Northwestern or Mizzou. That’s it. And if not that, then Minnesota, Kansas, or Iowa.
But I didn’t. Do I have regrets? I suppose. I don’t believe that my Simpson education is far short of even a prestigious Ivy education. I counted several faculty members as extremely dedicated, I still communicate with them today. I never had a TA – always hands-on teachers. I screwed around as much as I would have at even Yale or Princeton, I suspect.
But now, further removed from college – I’m a sports fan without a country. You can’t follow big-time college athletics after age 18, really, without a tangible bond to a certain school.
And that’s the quandary I’m in now. Beginning at age 7, for some inexplicable reason, I ate, slept, and breathed Orange. Somehow, some way, I followed the Syracuse Orangemen year-round. I loved Syracuse. I worshiped Syracuse. I wanted to go there, but ultimately didn’t have the guts to try it out. Embarrassing as it seems now, I had some subconscious desire to remain within driving distance of home, I think.
And so I wound up at Simpson, full well knowing that I would miss out on some big-time sports. But also knowing I would supposedly be able to retain my Cuse fandom.
Well, I have. But it’s different. After you’re in the real world, people look at you a little funny when you root for a school having no ties. You can’t really rub elbows with alumni – you’re not one. You can’t really claim regional ties, you’re not from there. No matter how much minutia, facts, etc. you know, remember or understand – you’ll never quite be one of them.
And that’s where I am with Syracuse. Their national basketball title was a great moment in my sports life – but somehow, approaching my 30s, I don’t quite feel that it’s wholly appropriate to root for Syracuse anymore. Oh, I still do. The Post-Standard from 2003 still hangs in this very room. But to the outsider — well, it must seem just a little odd.
Back to 1999. Comes now the University of Iowa. I didn’t exactly have my best year in ’99. I was unhappy, somewhat self-absorbed, an insomniac (that hasn’t changed much), a lush, and basically a little lost. Because of a couple of separate events, I wanted out of Simpson. I’d honestly been to Iowa City only a handful of times in my life – and only to UI for basketball camp as a high school freshman. To escape my self-congratulatory misery, I jetted to IC to meet up with some old friends.
It ruled. The campus. The girls. The weather. The bars. The Ped Mall. All of it. It was great.
During that spring at Simpson, I transferred to Iowa. I was approved. I didn’t go, however. Exactly zero of my credits transferred as anything other than that – random credit hours. If I actually would have gone, I think I’d be finishing up, oh, about now. I also applied to UConn (you gasp, but I could claim state residency there. That’s why I did it.)
But I stayed. And I went to two Iowa football games that fall. The Hawkeyes were horrid. Nebraska pounded them.
Still, it was awesome.
I didn’t immediately become an Iowa fan. But I started pulling for them to beat in-state rival Iowa State, the official school of the father of Mr. Faded Glory. I started pulling for them to win the Big Ten. I started rooting for them in bowl games. I started empathizing with a litany of my friends – all of whom ate, slept, and breathed Hawkeye. I swore I’d try to get to at least one game every fall. Was I a bandwagon fan? I didn’t care. Would they ever have to face Syracuse, my friends asked? Not likely, I thought.
I moved out east after graduation. I was from Iowa, I always had to say. Not the potato state, I also had to say. Living in UConn/St. John’s Country, I rarely claimed I was a Syracuse fan. I still rooted for the school – but it was much easier to, ahem, re-brand myself as an Iowa fan.
They won the Big Ten basketball title. I cheered them on at a New York City tavern. OK, several New York City taverns. I bought T-shirts. I applied to their law school. To my new, east coast friends and colleagues, I had been an Iowa fan my entire life – Syracuse was just in my rearviewmirro.
Then, I went to law school. Where did I choose? Iowa.
Did the Hawkeyes have something to do with it? Well, maybe. Iowa City surely did. The school’s quality surely did. The law school is on par with Georgetown, the med school unrivaled in the midwest, and the aggregate of all the University’s parts on par with Duke. It was a great school.
I got season tickets. Tailgated to every Iowa game in 2001, when they began to turn around. I was there again, during the magical fall of 2002. That same exact school year, you-know-who won their first national basketball title.
I dropped out of law school. That was a few years ago. No hard feelings toward Iowa. Now I’m here, in Big 12 country, where fan allegiances take second place to conference allegiances, where conference myopia dominates all college sports, where territorialism legitimizes following one school’s football program and a rival’s basketball program.
Yet I worry about my own fan allegiances, simply because it’s all part of my identity. And I don’t have the cut-and-dry passion for one school with either (a) regional ties, or (b) alumni status. It’s all backstory, and it’s all necessary.
I’m an Iowa boy. I root for the Hawkeyes. But Syracuse has been me, ever since I was a kid. For years and years, I’ve claimed that it’s OK to have two schools. To follow two programs. To share in the blood, sweat, and tears with others – alumni, natives, etc. — even if you’re never going to be as legitimately attached as they.
But that’s it’s the way it’s going to be. I can’t really change. I can’t change one in favor of the other. I can’t demonize one in favor of the other. And for the rest of my life, to my Iowa friends – it’s going to seem a little weird that I follow the Hawkeyes. To everyone else I meet, it’s going to sound even more bizarre if I still bleed Orange through my veins, even as I further distance myself from Syracuse.
See? I act the part of a hardcore fan either way — but I’m not quite a member of either’s club. And this all would have been taken care of, if my guidance counselor would have steered me toward Northwestern. As it is, one foot’s in Iowa’s camp, the other’s in Syracuse’s camp. Pretty much around the clock.
And, today, the two play. One team will win, the other will lose. Iowa will probably win, and I would be happy. Syracuse could pull off an upset – an almighty one – and I’ll be happy.
Who do I cheer for?
The kid in me cheers for Syracuse, the nomad in me cheers for Iowa.
The kid wins out for me, tomorrow.
But the nomad isn’t far behind.