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How’s About a Halftime ‘Pep Talk’?

I’m writing this entry at the halftime of the Syracuse-Alabama ‘Sweet Sixteen’ NCAA basketball game. For those of you just tuning in, I’m a ginormous Orangemen fan, and have been for more than fifteen years.

(No, I didn’t go there. And no, I’ve never lived near there. I’ve never even been to the Carrier Dome. I know, I know — it doesn’t make any damned sense. Look, just read my explanation, and cut me some slack, all right? I don’t know what else to tell you.)

Anyway, what I can tell you is that I’m a big a fan of my ‘adopted’ school’s teams as any alumnus of any other institution of higher partying. Er, learning. I meant ‘learning‘. Sorry, Freudian shot. Uh, slip. Of course. Moving on.

The point is that I live and die with my team — every game, every shot, every last-minute heroic effort to decide a national champion.

(In ’87, it was Keith ‘Booger Face’ Smart with a shot from the corner to beat the ‘cuse; last year, it was Hakim Warrick’s block with time running out to save the game. That’s how it goes in college hoops — sometimes you win, and sometimes you vilify some cross-eyed lucky bastard and his sorry-ass, corn-fed, dickhead-coached team for the rest of your life. Um, that is to say — sometimes you lose.. I tend to get a little worked up over these things. Sorry.)

Anyway, watching a Syracuse game is like a religious experience for me. My palms sweat, and my heart pounds against my ribs. I curse, and scream, and squeal with joy. I get knots in the pit of my stomach; sometimes, I’m so animated and loud that I frighten the dog away. And if it doesn’t go my way, I feel the frustration and shame for hours, sometimes days.

Wait, did I say ‘religious experience’? Sorry, I meant, ‘sexual experience‘. My bad. All the rest of that probably makes much more sense now, eh?

Okay, enough silliness for now. Halftime’s just about over, and my hands are getting shaky again. Time to go through another twenty minutes of hell. I just hope they manage to pull this one out. I just hate being all pissy and snarly going into a weekend. Go ‘Cuse!