School Spirit, Hooray

Ah, college sports [*Note: By college sports, I am of course only referring to football, (men's) basketball, and (men's) hockey (I'll throw (men's) lacrosse in there even though they're not in season), anyone who takes pride in their school being good at something else needs to re-evaluate their life (I'm looking at you, UCLA, women's sports extraordinaire), as no other sports bring the excitement that these do. Fact.]. How I love thee. And yes, I swore off college football, but come on, you didn't ACTUALLY think I would stop paying attention, did you? Besides, my Oregon-Kansas BCS championship pick, made when they were at #'s 5 and 10, respectively, isn't looking that ridiculous anymore is it?

But I'm not here to talk about things on a national landscape. Because in the end, it isn't really about winning championships (False, it is about winning championships, but for the purposes of this article, bear with me), it's just the atmosphere created on campus by these sports.* A recent slate of exciting sporting events took/is taking place here at Miami, and our school dubbed it "Super Fan Week," lasting from last Friday through tonight, and what a week it has been.

Things started out on Friday night with a hockey game against Notre Dame. It was our first home game as the #1 team in the nation this season, which made it all the more disappointing to come out on the losing end of a 2-1 game in which we outplayed them by far. However, Nathan Davis, who is one of our best players and was a popular preseason pick to win the Hobey Baker (hockey's version of the Heisman), returned to action after separating his shoulder in the first game of the season. He also scored our lone goal, so I guess you could say that was the silver lining in our first loss of the season.

The Saturday night game was a totally different story, as Miami came out firing early and often, quickly jumping to a 2-0 lead and eventually winning 3-1, enough to maintain the #1 spot in the polls. The "Super Fans" were out in full force that night, full of "Notre Douchebags," "God Sucks," and "Air Force" chants (Notre Dame football had suffered an embarrassing loss to Air Force earlier that day), helping cheer their team to victory.

On Tuesday night our basketball team opened its season with a 59-57 victory over Xavier, who is by no means a bad basketball team. You'll recall last season's NCAA tournament in which eventual finalist Ohio State needed a couple miracles to beat Xavier and got all of them. An interesting note from the game: Only four players combined for our 59 points, and one of those players had 5. So essentially, an injury can absolutely ruin our season. But for now, undefeated! Also, this seems like a good place to throw this video in, just because.

Tonight "Super Fan Week" concludes with a national broadcast (ESPN2, 7:30 EST) of our football game vs. Akron, which means Lou Holtz and Mark May are most likely currently at my school. Perhaps I can make my way up to the press box tonight and ask Lou Holtz for a personal pep talk on what to do about my geology class. Anyway, a win tonight (coupled with a likely Bowling Green loss to Buffalo this weekend, or if we win next week) will put us in the MAC championship game, with a January bowl game on the line. (You read that right. The International Bowl is in January.)

So what am I really trying to do with this post, other than tell you about how my school's sports programs suddenly don't look like shit? Well, nothing, really. That's about it. I suppose you could try to apply these to your own school. Support your teams, even when they lose, because they're probably more pissed off than you are, and try to remember that they're just college kids. That being said, feel free to lay the points tonight and take the RedHawks and the under.