How am I going to handle the big game Thursday night? I am excited yet full of dread.
Being a longtime Cubs baseball fan I understand how to handle disappointment. I have come to the conclusion that it is better if the Cubs have a nice season but don't get involved in the playoffs. It's just easier on me. I'm selfish like that.
As for the Oklahoma Sooners, I have been a fan my entire life. I am one of those fans who never attended OU and have no family member who has. My older brother is a graduate of Oklahoma State, but I don't hold it against him.
I am the fan that some OU alums and some non-OU fans complain about. It goes something like this: "OU has all those rabid fans who have never even set foot on the campus except for a football game."
That is somehow supposed to be an insult to either those fans, the school, the football team or all three. And, yes, it kind of makes me angry.
I became an OU football fan for one reason; my dad was a big OU football fan. I grew up idolizing Jerry Tubbs, Prentice Gaut, Tommy MacDonald and Bud Wilkinson.
My dad never set foot on the OU campus, although I think he once got to go to an OU game. We listened on radio and saw a few games on TV. But every week we watched the Bud Wilkinson Show on an Oklahoma City TV station and marveled at how the coach would analyze the game and move little magnetized football players around on a small football field to show the viewers how a play worked or didn't work.
My dad was an OU fan for the reason that so many other Oklahomans of his generation were. They came home from World War II to a different state. They had endured the Great Depression and the great migration of the Okies. They had suffered the stigma of being from what was considered a state full of dust and backward people with no redeeming quality other than having oil.
OU football gave them something to proud of. When Wilkinson's teams put together two long winning streaks (one which still stands today) they brought pride to the state.
So, go ahead and look down your nose at me and several thousand other fans who never attended a class at OU and many others who still haven't set foot on campus.
I can still remember the look on my dad's face when OU won a game. I don't watch an OU game without thinking of my dad and me hunched around a small radio on a Saturday. And as much as I might try to remain unmoved Thursday night, I will live and die with each play.
I can't help it. It's in my blood.
