The Wildly Mixed Emotions of a Beaver Fan
Image courtesy of OSU Athletics
Just like a teenager or a TikTok Mommy Blogger, I have felt all the feels over the past weekend. I’ve been depressed, angry, sad, confused, and felt misunderstood. I’ve seen people who are supposedly on the same team as I am have wildly different takes that sometimes make me wonder if any of this is even worth it anymore.
First, some background that may help inform as to where my Beaver opinions/fanship derive from. This school is part of the fabric of my family. My great-grandfather was instrumental in getting the MU built. He was the editor in chief of the Barometer while in school, he went on to become a professor, the registrar, and would eventually end up as the Dean of Registration for 20 years before he retired. There is an award at OSU named after him that is given to the alum whose accomplishments and contributions to society bring the most credit to OSU. It is the highest honor the school gives to alumni. Previous recipients include the computer mouse guy, the Nobel prize winner guy, the great white whale of OSU donors (NVIDIA guy), and even the Olympic high jump guy. My uncle also won the award as one of the leading foresters in the world. Both of my grandparents worked at OSU. My parents met at OSU. My older brother went to OSU. I was determined to be rebellious so I went to college in California for two years before I came to realize the importance of fit and spent three of my favorite years at OSU. I even met my wife through friends that I had at OSU. All of this is just to say that being a Beaver is all that I know and my pride in the school has very little to do with the win/loss record of the football team.
But since this is a football problem we have come across, most of the rest of this diatribe will be related to that. First and foremost, the reason this all hurt so bad is because I thought that Jonathan Smith felt the same way that I did about this place, at least to some degree. And that isn’t just me being a romantic, he said it out of his own lying mouth. I mean if THAT guy won’t stick it out for OSU who in the hell will? I felt like Will Smith wrapping my arms around Uncle Phil yelling “why don’t he want me, man!!”
Look, I’m not naïve. I know that coaches are some of the most competitive and driven people in the world, but I just do not have the world view to understand the decisions that mindset leads to. If you can only be fulfilled and content if you win a National Championship then you will never be fulfilled or content because only one team is doing that each year and it almost certainly isn’t going to be you. I know he’s going to get more money and plenty of people will say that I would do the same thing in his shoes.
Bullshit.
If I made $5 million a year at my dream job, at Oregon State University, you would have to drag me away kicking and screaming. There isn’t one fucking necessary thing you can’t do with $5 million that you could do with $8 million. Sure you could get an even bigger house, drive an even more overpriced car, but all of that is just in service of your own ego. What I’m trying to say is that I believed Jonathan Smith felt like I do and he most clearly does not. That’s the part that hits the hardest.
Another depressing part of all this is I knew this was all not only possible, but probable, and I still allowed myself to be hoodwinked. When the news broke that the Pac 12 was dead I legitimately shed a tear. My wife didn’t fully understand why but I said, “something I really love will never be the same anymore” which really hit home with her as she had just left a job she loved because new management had fucked the whole thing up. I said then that there was no way we would be able to retain our staff or keep any of the momentum that we had going. And wouldn’t you know it, we started winning games. And Jonathan said he was invested in this place. And we had a pretty strong case in the law suit, and then we won the law suit. And all of the sudden I’m like hell yes! It’s us against the world and we’re gonna press through this. But as it turns out, the heroics of players like Akili Arnold and Easton Mascarenas-Arnold on the field were no match for what coach Benedict Arnold was doing off of it. But still, I fell for all of the false hope and false promises and now I’m left here holding the bag just like we all were in August.
Looking forward OSU has to get this coaching hire right. And I don’t mean in terms of getting a coach who will come in all Coach Prime style, say this place needs a total makeover and then eventually bounce when we’ve served his purpose. That doesn’t work here. Gary Andersen, who I despise more than anyone for what he did here, is a perfect example of that. We need someone like Mike Riley. That is a guy who gets it. He loves Corvallis and OSU and it is no coincidence that he is the winningest coach in school history. I’m still chapped to this day how little the fan base seemed to appreciate him when he was here. The Can-Riley signs made me sick. And fans like me who can handle losing football games are said to have a loser mentality and accept mediocrity because beating a top three USC team twice or No. 2 Cal on the road or getting up to No. 7 in 2012 and winning 28 games in a three-year stretch wasn’t good enough. To me, the real loser mentality is being so focused on the winning that you can’t enjoy our own team for who they are. At that point you aren’t a fan, you’re a critic.
Here are my expectations as a Beaver fan: I want to go into every game thinking we can win it. That’s really it. I had a blast this season right up until Judasthan Smith pulled the rug out from under it. And for our fanbase, I want them to chill the fuck out and enjoy what we do have instead of always searching or longing for something that we don’t.
So long story short, I want a coach that really does look at this as a destination he wants to be at. I want to go to football games on Saturdays with my sons and my dad and my brother and my nephew and see a team we can be proud of, with a coach we can be proud of and a well adjusted fan base that are truly just fans of OSU and not just fans of money and winning like our neighbors to the south. Because what I learned growing up is that being a true Beaver fan is about service and loyalty to OSU and not about what OSU can give you before you move on to “greener” pastures.