Take That, Losers!
By: Joshua Chamberlain
The only thing better than a victory is a loss by your biggest rival. In football, a simple 10 or 14 point loss simply won’t suffice, however. I’m looking for a loss of the heartbreaking variety. I want tears. I want agony. I want boneheaded moves that will be remembered forever. A friend of mine once bemoaned people “snuffing out someone else’s flame to make their own burn brighter.” Well, when the Wisconsin Badgers lose, my flame burns brighter.
Even a blowout, however, isn’t nearly as satisfying as a close loss topped by an idiotic chain of events. When it comes to rivalries, wins and losses don’t tell the tale. Rivalries are defined by the amount of satisfaction one gets from an opponent’s loss. I honestly can’t say what is more satisfying in a head to head game: enjoying the win or watching the opponent lose. I also have no idea what that says about me. Probably nothing good.
In the recently played 2012 Rose Bowl, us Minnesota Golden Gopher fans were able to experience this type of elation. It did not matter that the Gophers finished with 3 wins, failing to beat such unstoppable forces as North Dakota State (a 1-AA team) or New Mexico State (final record 4-9 in the “vaunted” WAC). What mattered was watching the hated Wisconsin Badgers lose.
What made it extra sweet was watching Brett Bielema, the Wisconsin coach widely considered by Gopher fans to be an arrogant prick trading on the success of his predecessor, Barry Alvarez, squander timeouts early in the second half, thus costing his team a chance to stop the clock on the final drive. This game will be remembered by me as proof positive that Bielema is a fool.
It will also be remembered by me for this:
Rivalries are a double-edged sword, however. Losing to a rival in excruciating fashion is a dangerous possibility, because there is no doubt that it will be remembered forever. The 2003 field goal kicked by Rhys Lloyd to propel the Gophers to a win over Wisconsin is remembered with reverence. This is offset, however, by the blocked punt that propelled Wisconsin to an improbable win in 2005. With rivalries, you have to take the good with the bad.
One of the best parts of these rivalry games is that it is rarely the stars who make the most memorable plays. Instead, and I will use a couple unfortunate names from Red Sox past, rivalries are remembered because of people like Aaron Boone (who tore a knee ligament in a pickup basketball game during the offseason after his homerun and never played for the Yankees again) and are sustained on the heroics of people like Bucky Dent (who hit his dramatic homerun in the one-game 1978 playoff using a bat he had borrowed from a teammate after his cracked).
Hearing about the Bucky Dent homerun (my father still refers to him as “Bucky Fucking Dent”) and witnessing the Aaron Boone homerun (I distinctly remember smashing a trash can and walking out of the room) helped to fuel my hatred of the Yankees. Yet, these moments are offset by the 2004 comeback against the Yankees, where the Sox took four straight games to win the ALCS after being down 3-0 (and subsequently won the World Series). The bad moments are also offset by Yankee losses like the one in 2001 where they lost to the Diamondbacks on Luis Gonzalez’s bloop single off arguably the best reliever in baseball history, Mariano Rivera. Rivera’s brilliance cannot be questioned, but it was sure nice watching him lose that game.
As fans, we wait and hope for our team’s next championship. The Gophers have not made it to a Rose Bowl in 50 years, so we have all been waiting for a while. The good news, however, is that it is almost certain that we will be able to watch a heart-wrenching Wisconsin defeat while we wait. That will be just as sweet.
One of the best parts of these rivalry games is that it is rarely the stars who make the most memorable plays. Instead, and I will use a couple unfortunate names from Red Sox past, rivalries are remembered because of people like Aaron Boone (who tore a knee ligament in a pickup basketball game during the offseason after his homerun and never played for the Yankees again) and are sustained on the heroics of people like Bucky Dent (who hit his dramatic homerun in the one-game 1978 playoff using a bat he had borrowed from a teammate after his cracked).
Hearing about the Bucky Dent homerun (my father still refers to him as “Bucky Fucking Dent”) and witnessing the Aaron Boone homerun (I distinctly remember smashing a trash can and walking out of the room) helped to fuel my hatred of the Yankees. Yet, these moments are offset by the 2004 comeback against the Yankees, where the Sox took four straight games to win the ALCS after being down 3-0 (and subsequently won the World Series). The bad moments are also offset by Yankee losses like the one in 2001 where they lost to the Diamondbacks on Luis Gonzalez’s bloop single off arguably the best reliever in baseball history, Mariano Rivera. Rivera’s brilliance cannot be questioned, but it was sure nice watching him lose that game.
As fans, we wait and hope for our team’s next championship. The Gophers have not made it to a Rose Bowl in 50 years, so we have all been waiting for a while. The good news, however, is that it is almost certain that we will be able to watch a heart-wrenching Wisconsin defeat while we wait. That will be just as sweet.