Manage Your Expectations

When you schedule pre-Big 10 Season games with schools like Wofford State, Northern Illinois, South Dakota, and The Citadel, you make yourself bowl-eligible (6 wins) in short order.

You make your players and fans feel good about themselves.

What you don’t do is prepare your team to soundly trounce Michigan State and Ohio State on the road.

Don’t get me wrong.  I’m not one of the haters who feels good when the Badgers lose.  I do believe most jocks are pampered, most coaches are overpaid, and that far too much is made of the won-lost record.   But I am a fan, and I’d far rather see any Badgers team win than lose.

It’s clear that the philosophy of the football brain trust on Monroe Street for the past umpty-nine seasons has been to get bowl-eligible in a hurry, put up a decent showing in conference competition, and end the season with a January 1^st bowl game.  It’s a philosophy which has served the football Badgers well for many years.

The trouble comes when you land a highly-sought-after quarterback; you mow down UNLV, Oregon State, Northern Illinois, and South Dakota….and then discover that Nebraska wasn’t really ready for prime time just yet, and Indiana is no match.  You’ve got this quarterback who most decidedly does NOT fit the “Wisconsin mold” and can throw, scramble, and run with the best of them, and people start talking “Heisman”, and the phrase “National Championship Game” starts to pop up regularly in conversation.  My friend Jay Wilson puts on his professor glasses and lays out the possibilities of a Wisconsin national championship on his blackboard (which is actually green) for the Channel 3 viewers. And you start paying attention to BCS standings.

That’s when the trouble starts.  And then, you get shocked with a highly improbable finish on the road at East Lansing, and a startlingly similar scenario plays out in Columbus.  Suddenly it’s all disappointment and accusations of time-out mismanagement and special teams breakdowns and gloom.

The problem is, you didn’t manage your expectations.

The Badgers football team is designed to get bowl-eligible in a hurry, do well in conference play, and go to a “decent” bowl game.  And so far, sports fans, it is EXACTLY on track.  It is NOT designed for high BCS rankings; it is NOT designed to be on a par with Southeast Conference teams; it is NOT designed to compete for a national championship.

The Badgers will do well against Purdue, Minnesota, Illinois, and Penn State.  They’ll play competitive ball.  They may not win all four remaining games, but it’s not likely they’ll be blown out of any of them. And partly because of their W-L record and partly because Badgers fans love to party and travel well, they’ll be in a decent bowl at the end of the year.

Manage your expectations.

God Hates the Badgers Football Team?

As is my custom, when my wife’s alarm clock went off at 5:25 this morning, as she headed for the shower I grabbed the remote and turned on the TV to get the latest news from my friend Rob Starbuck on Channel 3.  They were doing their sports segment, and I heard Coach Bielema say there was nothing they could have done to prevent the loss at Michigan State Saturday night.

Actually, what Coach Bielema said was more like this – and I’m paraphrasing, but it’s close:  “I don’t want to get too spiritual here, but maybe it just wasn’t meant to be.  Maybe somebody up there just didn’t want us to win this one”.

Maybe it just wasn’t meant to be?  WHAT?

I’m not at all a believer in “if it was meant to be, it will be; if it wasn’t, it won’t happen” because I think it flies in the face of individual effort and is one of those things people tell themselves (and others) after something they’ve wanted a great deal or worked hard for, doesn’t happen.  I’m pretty sure God does not get involved in issues involving the outcome of football games or personal relationships or any of that stuff.

So, to hear Coach Bielema essentially say there may have been nothing they could have done to win that game because God may not have wanted them to was a real shocker.  Here’s a guy who’s had to prove himself worthy of the job handed to him (unlawfully, by the way) on a silver platter by his extremely successful predecessor (and Coach Bielema has proved beyond any doubt he was worthy), pretty much inferring that the outcome of the Michigan State game was out of his hands.

Coaches work tirelessly to motivate players to give their best and their all every time the ball is snapped; they teach that individual effort must mesh with team effort to achieve a desired outcome; that they must give their all as individuals and as a team to make things happen.  So, to hear a successful coach say God may not have wanted them to beat the Spartans really rocked me.

Some may say that I’ve taken the coach’s words out of context, that he was understandably down after such a dramatic ending, that he’s doing nothing more or less than any human does to rationalize a huge emotional hurt, but….this was a public statement, on the record, with the coach fully aware that cameras were rolling, clearly inferring that God may have had a hand in the outcome of the game.

It was a tough and stunning loss, and I’m a Badgers fan all the way, but I think the UW’s habit of dining on cupcakes in the pre-season, and believing their own press clippings after they dispatched Nebraska so easily, may have had more to do with the outcome of the game than the Lord God Almighty deciding to be a Spartans fan Saturday night.  I hope that dawns on the coach before they head to Columbus next Saturday.

Chance the Vulgar Chant Will Stop: Zero-point-zero.

For those few of you who read this rant and are not familiar with what the game-day experience is like at Camp Randall Stadium, a word of warning: this post will contain vulgar language.  Nothing adults haven’t heard, but if it’s not your cup of tea, be forewarned, and catch up on some other blogs.

Several years ago – I’m not sure when - the reform-school dropouts who populate the student sections of Camp Randall Stadium (those sections with letters in the middle of the alphabet) began a chant which persists to this day.  It must have started when the Badgers were in the throes of the Don Morton era, when wins were few and far between, and the game on the field was not the most exciting part of the game-day experience.  Half the students would yell “Eat shit!” and the other half would yell back “Fuck You”.  Some insist it arose prior to the Morton era, as a crude counterpoint to the beer commercial that said “Tastes Great!  Less Filling!” in several variants, back in the 70’s and 80’s.

It gets so loud that the TV sound techs have had to figure out a way to try and keep it from invading grandma and grandpa’s living room, as they watch alma mater.  It’s crude, rude, stupid, vapid, devoid of creativity, boorish, and….now firmly entrenched, as much a part of the game-day experience as the jump around frenzy between the 3^rd and 4^th quarter, and the 5^th quarter show from Dr. Leckrone and his marching band.

And it’s not going away because Barry and Bret sent ‘round an e-mail to the students asking them to stop doing it.

Anyone who’s ever parented a child knows what children do when you ask them to stop doing something that annoys you or is unmannered.  Absent a consequence, the behavior continues.

A few years ago then-Chancellor John Wiley sent ‘round a similar e-mail, and it was ignored, just as Barry and Bret’s e-mail will be ignored tomorrow morning when Indiana comes in for the Homecoming game.

Attending a Badgers home football game entails dodging a phalanx of drunken students to get into the stadium, and woe betide he who wears the colors of the opposing team – stand by to be loudly insulted, intimidated, and, if the cops aren’t around, to have beer tossed at you.  It’s a very raucous atmosphere, it’s a very partisan crowd.  It’s what some people call “part of the home-field advantage”.  Badgers basketball and hockey games at the Kohl Center are nothing like the Camp Randall experience.  In my opinion, the crowd chants and cheers that are part of a Badgers hockey game are far more creative and engaging than anything in or around Camp Randall.   The experience of having 17 thousand rabid hockey fans chanting “SIEVE!!!” and pointing their collective (index) finger at the goalie who’s just been scored on is unduplicated in collegiate sport anywhere.  (European soccer matches are in a league of their own.)

I think part of it is that the powers-that-be at the big college on the lake aren’t really serious about stopping the vulgar chant.  There’s no consequence.   It’s sort of like those messages you see before the feature film starts, in a movie theater – the ones about silencing your cell phone and “no talking or texting during the film”.  Movies are made for young people, and it’s their money that drives the box office, so theatre owners aren’t really serious about stopping the talking and texting; they run the message to make the “more mature” patrons feel that management is concerned about the movie-going experience.  Nobody ever gets tossed out of a movie theatre for texting while the movie is on.

If the brain trust at the UW were serious about stopping the chant, they could do it in a heartbeat.  All they’d have to do is announce to the crowd that if the vulgar chant is heard, the referee will throw the yellow hankie and announce an unsportsmanlike conduct penalty on the home team (a “bench foul”, if you will).  It would take approximately one such penalty to bring the vulgar chant to an end.

Without a consequence, the chance of the vulgar chant ending because of an e-mail from the Athletic Director and the Head Coach is….as Dean Vernon Wormer (Animal House) would say….zero-point-zero.

Loyal - or not?

Reports in the public prints and media indicate Coach Bielema and his minions are disenchanted with Badgers fans who’ve sold their tickets to Saturday night’s game to Nebraska fans.  Something like “loyal Badgers fans wouldn’t do that”.

Indeed.

At this writing, Thursday noon, according to StubHub, nosebleed seats are going for around 200 bucks; good seats are ranging from 300 to 700 bucks; all the way up to 4 seats at Varsity Club Level 1 going for a cool 1200 bucks apiece. 

The UW Football brain trust is implying (if not outright saying) that selling your tickets to a Nebraska fan is disloyal.

Commentators are saying this would NEVER happen in places like Alabama, Florida, Oklahoma, and Texas, where football is more religion than sport.

Many years ago, I decided the best seat in the house for the “big game”, no matter what the sport, is in my huge overstuffed recliner in the media room of our home, watching in hi-def on the 65-inch screen and listening through a 300-watt 5.1 sound system which can create sound so massive I alert the US Geological Survey’s National Earthquake Information Center when I’m going to move the volume past “5” on the indicator. 

So I have no issue with those Badgers fans who’ve decided to trade in their game tickets for a mortgage payment.

Loyalty, schmoyalty.  It’s the free market in action.

The Game-Day Experience

One of the blogs I enjoy reading did a bang-up job of chronicling the Badger game-day experience for the UNLV game last Thursday night.  Well, half of the experience, as the blogger’s smart phone, with which he was keeping a video chronicle of the game, died.

The post is here (http://www.nonsportsmanlikeconduct.com/2011/09/want-to-know-what-its-like-to-attend-12.html) and it’s worth the read.

My conclusion, even though the blogger was only able to take us to half-time: the best seat for a Badgers game is in front of my big-screen hi-def TV at home.

The post about his game-day experience is a wry look at the hoops through which one must jump just to make it to your (entirely too small) assigned space in Camp Randall Stadium, from the challenge of parking within reasonable walking distance of the stadium, through the assembled multitudes and vendors-of-things-deep-fried-in-hot-grease, to negotiating through the warrens in the bowels of the stadium, and then cramming yourself into the small bit of real estate you’ve paid so dearly to rent.

The pomp of the Division 1-A college football pre-game is chronicled, along with a gallery of still pictures of some of the more colorful individuals who attend these contests.

Big-time college football is a huge financial undertaking, and, as the old saying goes, to run with the big dogs, you need to bring a very large wallet.  It takes a lot of grease to wedge 87 thousand fannies into those expensive seats, and I’m not talking about just paying your athletic director and head coach a million bucks a year or more.

But here’s the subtle point I took away from the post: the Badgers’ goal is to make it to the Rose Bowl.  Not to win the national championship, but to make it to the Rose Bowl.  That’s why they continue to schedule patsies like UNLV (the Badgers won in a rout, 51-17) and Northern Illinois and Saint Rita’s School for the Blind – so they can get the six wins necessary to be “bowl-eligible” and set their sights on Pasadena New Year’s Day.

Scheduling patsies in the pre-season as the Badgers have for decades insures that they will never qualify for the national championship.  The fans by and large seem to be OK with this practice of spending a month playing games where the outcome is never seriously in doubt.  There's only a bit of grousing about it.

But these are tougher times.  Even the corpuscles…the old white guys in the cardinal red jackets…will at some point balk in paying the exorbitant “licensing fees” and “mandatory contributions” necessary to maintain a position in the “good seats” in the stadium.

The Badgers may find themselves in a position where they’re going to have to set their sights higher than the Rose Bowl if they’re going to keep feeding the beast that is NCAA Division 1-A football.