The Game Is Already Cancelled At My House
39 Saturdays from now, the artist formerly known as the greatest rivalry in college football will renew. But it will do so without me.
The last time I gave up on something I was in the seventh grade at Jackson Park Junior High in Wyoming, Michigan.
I couldn't make the basketball team, so I thought I'd give wrestling a shot. After all, pro wrestling was one of my favorite shows as a kid. Between the WWF Cartoon Saturday mornings, WWF action Saturday afternoons, and Ric Flair and his four horsemen with NWA wrestling on Saturday nights, I was hooked. I never missed a Monday night with Bobby "the brain" Heenan and Gorilla Monsoon, either.
I was a total Hulkamaniac. My buddy at the time, Todd, had a pool with a nice deck at his house. We use to put on the wrestling album to give each of us walk-in music as we simulated memorable moments we had seen on TV. My go-to was using Todd's deck railing to emulate Jimmy "superfly" Snuka coming off the top of a steel cage for a finishing move. It was pretty lit, if I do say so myself.
This is what I thought wrestling was. Vision Quest was rated-R, so my mom didn't let me see it. Thus, I had absolutely no prior exposure to amateur wrestling. Until I showed up at the junior high wrestling room for the first time. When the coach called for bear crawls it was then that Toto realized he wasn't in Kansas anymore.
I was a late bloomer as they used to say, which means the singlet didn't quite fit/bulge in the places it was supposed to. I looked ridiculous. I only won one match, and it's because a bunch of kids were sick in Sparta so there was no one to wrestle at my weight. That's right, my only win was by forfeit. In one match I sadly got pinned in less than a minute, by a kid that looked like the long, lost love-child of Norm Peterson from Cheers. I was told afterwards it was the first time he had ever won a match.
This was such an emasculating and embarrassing experience, my hard-driving stepfather nothing was ever good enough for finally came to me and said, "If you wanna quit this not even I will stand in the way." Translation: he was just as humiliated as I was, because I had his last name.
I regale you with my personal tale of woe and lamentation, and lay all that scar tissue bare, so that you know I don't eject easily. I have failed at plenty of things in life since then, but I haven't quit at any of them. I've been fired, turned down, mocked, and rejected -- but I have not quit.
Until now.
I'm sorry not sorry, but I just can't take anymore Buckeye beatings. I give. The last two years -- with rosters fully recruited by our Mosaic head coach, who still got their pants pulled down in public -- have broken me.
I've already lost my son. Four years ago, he cried tears of joy when he found out he was going to his first game ever at the Big House. He never missed a minute of Michigan football. He dressed up as Jim Harbaugh for Halloween -- twice.
Now he's a seventh grader, and I can barely get him to watch. The 2018 Columbus collapse was his kill-shot. Last November's curb-stomping, with the Wolverines at home and playing as well on both sides of the ball simultaneously as they had in the Harbaugh era, was mine.
I simply cannot endure another ruined Thanksgiving weekend. 15 years of this is enough. 15 years! That means I've spent one third of my lifetime getting my manhood kicked by a scarlet-and-gray steel-toed boot.
And no, 2011 doesn't really count. That was a Buckeye squad with an interim coach, and only the fourth Ohio State team in the last 50 years to finish with six or fewer wins. Having that be our only bright spot is even more humiliating. Like my lone junior high wrestling victory by forfeit. A pity-win.
Not to mention this year's game is in Columbus, where we haven't won since before any of my three children were born. My oldest is now 19.
So come November 28th, I will be at the IMAX watching Kong v. Godzilla instead of in front of my television, bracing for our perennial punking. Now that's a rivalry. That's a fair fight. That's a contest either side could legitimately win -- colossus vs. colossus. Two titans trading blows, may the best man win. A mythological version of Woody v. Bo.
The Game as its currently constructed has ruined my love for this rivalry, and I hate how it makes me feel about my favorite team every year. That it makes me feel as if nothing else we did all season mattered. The Game has made me a bad fan.
A wise man once said if your eye causes you to sin, pluck it out (metaphorically speaking). That's exactly what I'm doing with Michigan-Ohio State. When/if Michigan ever decides to renew the rivalry, I'll happily bring it back in my home. From now on, I resolve to enjoy Michigan football again. The only way I can do that is to cancel The Game until further notice.
I know I'll get torched by my fellow Michigan fans for this. So be it. Feel free to come at me, because I'm never wearing that maize and blue singlet again.
If you're one of the online trolls I'll never meet calling me out, congratulations for being fake tougher than me. A sign of maturity is a man knowing his limits. I've reached mine.
Brandon Brown and Michael Spath discuss what Michigan/Harbaugh needs to do to win back an increasingly skeptical fan base.
