Recovering From a Loss: How To Deal With Your Football Fan Lunacy

The sky is falling.

It's the end of the world.

You feel like you might vomit.

In some cases, there are tears.

Yes, these are just but a few symptoms one feels as they come to grips with the fact that your college football team is about to come down in the loss column. Unless, I mean, you are a fan of teams that lose on a consistent basis.

You begin to question all things in your life. Was it the shirt you were wearing, of course not, we've never lost when I've worn this shirt before. Perhaps you weren't sitting in the right spot on your couch or maybe you decided to watch this game at a bar instead of your home and prior to that your team was unbeaten.

All rationalization is obliterated by the ridiculous importance placed on college athletics.

You could be scheduled to accept the Nobel Prize Saturday evening. A great night, a monumental lifetime achievement, but if you are a die hard college football fan (remember, this is hypothetical), the proper response would be, "SCREW THE NOBEL PRIZE, MY TEAM LOST TODAY!"

All the websites, blogs, forums, newspapers, radio shows that you read or tune into to examine how your team dismantled another opponent, now taunt you. You close off all media and just want it to go away.

Maybe you find yourself quietly muttering nonsense, curled in the fetal position in an empty bath tub, saying things like, "why did we fake the field goal, maybe I had the wrong underwear on, my wife never watches the game and she did this time, it's her fault."

The Saturday evening you had lined up to watch all late games is washed away. You're no longer interested because you know that every so many seconds the bottom line is going to flash the score. The announcers will reference it. Half-time shows will center around it.

Perhaps your desperation causes drastic measures, like, say, loading your latest NCAA football game into the gaming system of your choice and replaying the game. Perhaps it's even sadder and you do that, but then lower your opponents skill level to the lowest possible one enabling you to light up the scoreboard. Oh yes, sweet satisfaction through pix-elation.

No. You must suck it up.

These are the times when your team needs your support the most. It's easy to flaunt your gear when your team is winning, but hard when your team falls. Wear that shirt proudly, fly that car flag, keep up that Facebook profile pic!

Prepare yourself for the onslaught by friends, neighbors, co-workers, or anyone who takes pleasure in your team's demise. In fact, look up stats, numbers, whatever you can to throw it back in their face, yes, that's it! Empower yourself with insulting rebuttals of glories past or let them know it's a long season, etc, etc. There's no room for the high road here!

Before you know it, the middle of the week will be here. The focus will change to the next game and finally after a long few days of insanity, despair, shameful acts, and immaturity, you can get ready to throw salt in the wounds of other fans.

Unless, of course, your teams loses again.

When you really stop to think about it, it's just silly. In fact, the odds are so stacked against you as a fan. Odds are only 1 or a handful of teams will go unbeaten in any given year, so losing is going to have to be something you deal with. Ultimately, you have to wonder why we invest so much in something that truly has very little effect on our realities.

I've never benefited from a team winning a title. I mean, I didn't get an extra day off work, a bonus, or anything. In fact, all I did was spend even more money on various memorabilia after Alabama's 2009 season.

Despite all these things we keep coming back for more. We keep investing so much of ourselves in a game played by 18-22 year olds. Why? I don't know? What I do know is that the euphoria of beating your rival or winning a big game is worth it.

Isn't being a fan fun?