Deserve Victory

As a historian, I find myself often fascinated by World War II propaganda posters*, because they are not only early forms of internet memes, but they need to convey a sense of what one person can do to move the nation forward.  So, leave it to the British, once the world's mightiest empire but by 1940 one faltering and flagging, but still proud, still resolute, still believing that their glorious past could lead to a glorious future, and well, you see where I'm going here.

So here we are, at the end of the 2011 Michigan season, and I'm a little annoyed.  Grantland's Michael Weinreb** has taken to calling Michigan's victory in the Sugar Bowl emblematic of the Big Ten's "faux success" and referring to this season as "one of the emptiest 11-win seasons in college football history."  I mean, I was annoyed and then I remembered Weinreb is a Penn State alumnus and has probably spent most of the last few months staring into what the future looks like and it's only the abyss staring back at him.  Fine, Michigan's Sugar Bowl victory is largely because Virginia Tech handed the game to them.  But hey, Michigan was in a position to take what was given to them and they took it.  Fine, Michigan's Sugar Bowl victory is part of the Big Ten's "faux success" except for that pesky "Hey, with Michigan going to a BCS game, everyone else slotted one game up (coupled with the toxicity of Penn State, who didn't exactly look like they were thrilled to be at the TicketCity...oh look, Case Keenum just threw another TD pass.) and played three de facto road games (pointed out by David Thorsley, @TAMU in Houston, @Florida in Jacksonville, and @Houston at Dallas.)  So whatever, in the end the fact that a national writer took the time to take a swipe at Michigan's win actually made me happy, for the simple reason that you don't take that kind of swipe at a team unless they're back near the top of the heap.

Credit again to David for getting so much of what I wanted to say into his post-game column yesterday but the notion of "deserving victory" has struck me.  How do we define the notion of "deserving victory"?  How do we even know if we deserve anything?  Deserving is built upon our notions of merit, fair play, and justice.  Deserve, itself, comes from the Latin for "devoting one's self to service".  Which means that deserve is subjective,  There's no way we can say that Michigan "deserved" to win anymore than we can say Virginia Tech did not "deserve" to win because its in the eye of the beholder.  How do we know?  Do we question the effort in practice, in the weight room, in watching film?  We don't.  We cling to the notion of deserve because we desire a world that is just, that is fair, that makes sense.  We have been painfully reminded in 2011 that college football is best when it does not intersect real life, but rather exists in an ethereal plain above real life, and it is because it exists as a pseudo-fantasy realm adjacent to the real world, we also peg our desires for that which is too rarely seen in the real world, justice, fairness, meritocracy, on the outcomes of these games.  We also know these things do not exist in the world of college football any more than they do in our own life.

One of the best lessons I ever received about being a college football fan came from my friend Mike nearly a decade ago when he said, very simply to me "You have to remember that the other team is trying to win the game too."  It's obvious now, in retrospect, but it completely altered my vision of Michigan football, from parochial orthodoxy to seeing Michigan in the context of the larger college football landscape.  Virginia Tech was trying to win the Sugar Bowl just as much as Michigan was.  Mistakes were made, regrets will be had.  In the end Michigan will go down as having won a 23-20 overtime game that was by no means a classic, but still a part of the tapestry of that game's history.

Did Team 132 deserve victory?  I'm not sure, and I can never be sure.  But I can be sure that their courage, their cheerfulness, and their resolution brought them victory.  Courage in David Molk and Ryan Van Bergen and Taylor Lewan playing through significant injuries.  Their cheerfulness in Brendan Gibbons' now pantheon  "Brunette girls" answer.  Their resolution in what they demonstrated throughout this whole season.  This is not one of the all-time great Michigan teams.  It's not the 1997 team, it's not the 1901 team, it's not the 1969 team.  But it's the 2011 team and people are going to look back on it and smile, because they will remember the 11 wins, the magic under the lights, the release of getting the Buckeye monkey off their backs, and the improbability of that Sugar Bowl victory.  If you make the case that any season that doesn't end in a national championship is a essentially empty, well, I feel for you, because your standards are so high, you can't enjoy the ride.  The joy of college football comes when players who pass through your life briefly, but live for a long time in your memory get to celebrate a victory, one a long time coming.

Thank you Team 132.  Team 133, the future starts now.

*--For no good reason, I had to include this one I found in looking for the two above.  All I know is that this guy is really annoyed with Canada.

**-Weinreb also, hilariously, in his closing paragraph, attacks the fact that Michigan didn't even win its own division (an argument rendered moot by the fact that neither did another team playing in a BCS bowl in the Superdome and the stakes are a little higher for them) and that the success will be short-lived for the next decade with the arrival of Urban Meyer at Ohio State (I understand Meyer's resume and I do not scoff at it, but the notion that Michigan is going to be steamrolled by Ohio State simply because Urban Meyer is their coach.  You'll forgive me if I don't believe it until I see it.)

You have to believe in things that aren't true. How else can they become?

First off, gentle readers, I'm sorry I couldn't get the post title to appear in small caps. Blogger's not cool like that.

Sometimes things don't go your way. I was going to spend a lovely Christmas with my wife and enjoy a relaxing new year, but fate, a.k.a. staphylococcus aureus, stepped in and I spent Christmas hacking up my lungs and New Year's Eve at the University of Maryland hospital in Baltimore. Tuesday was my first full day at home, and the only reason I was able to stay up to watch the Sugar Bowl is because I slept from 2:00 to 6:00 in the afternoon. The silver lining of all this in the short term is I got to watch a lot of bowl games. Capital One Bowl Week is best experienced while being hospitalized for pneumonia.
 
(If any of you ever say anything bad about the Belk Bowl, I will tell you what the Belk Bowl distracted me from in the emergency ward. You will regret having said anything bad about the Belk Bowl and will never do such a thing again.)

Sometimes things do go your way. I don't think there's a single thinking Michigan fan on the planet who isn't saying, "Oh yeah, the horseshoe up Brady Hoke's butt must have had a horseshoe up its butt that was transmitting signals to the horseshoe up Jareth Glanda's butt." Sometimes the broken fake field goal somehow works. Sometimes the pass that should have been intercepted goes through the defender's hands and becomes a touchdown. Sometimes it's like winning the lottery. It just happens.

Horseshoe not shown.

In a football game, if something goes your way, it means it didn't go someone else's way. Poor Danny Coale. The man has the greatest moment of his life, and two minutes later, some man in a booth tells him, "Sorry, didn't count. The ball jiggled." It was the right call, but can you imagine having the best thing you ever did taken away? Poor Justin Myer. He steps out on the field in an emergency and kicks  four field goals, only to have the fifth one go wide. Fortunate Brendan Gibbons gets his chance, and he becomes a hero to brunettes all over the nation.

Hail to the victors valiant. Hail to the vanquished valiant. It's no less of a victory because our team got some lucky bounces. Somehow, by a millimeter, by a millisecond, Michigan kept its promise to Team 132 and those who stayed were finally champions.

Rhapsody in Blue

I will write up a full post-game, post-season hosanna to Team 132 when I have time to think and breathe, but for right now, three thoughts:

 1).

Junior. Hemingway. Period. True at First Light.

2).
Little Bill Daggett: "I don't deserve this... to die like this. I was building a house."
Will Munny: "Deserve's got nothin' to do with it."

 3). Yesterday, before the bowls started, I watched PBS's broadcast at Live from Lincoln Center from this past New Year's Eve in part because they were playing "Rhapsody in Blue", one of my all-time favorite pieces of music (this video will go away soon, but worth it if you see it today).

Watch New York Philharmonic Bernstein and Gershwin New Year's Eve on PBS. See more from pbs.

So for posterity, I snagged this Fantasia 2000 clip and will allow the free flowing experiment in modern music take us into the off-season.

 

 Bless you Team 132. Bless you.  Hail!