Derrick Rose, Depressing Chicago Sports, and What's Really Important

Being a fan of several struggling teams at one time is an interesting experience. The Bears are technically tied for the division lead at 6-5, but they already lost both games to Detroit, Jay Cutler is going to miss his third consecutive game due to injury and the defense can't stop anybody. The Bulls just lost Derrick Rose for another season, and don't have nearly enough talent to pick up the slack. The Cubs are still going through a major rebuilding phase and are still years away. The Blackhawks have been a bright spot in the professional ranks, but the landscape is predominantly pretty dreary.

Rutgers hasn't been much better, either. The football team has been blown out in three of four games to conference opponents and needed a fourth quarter comeback to beat a then one-win Temple squad. The men's basketball team¹ lost two of three to the likes of William & Mary and Fairleigh Dickinson. The women's team opened the season with a cupcake non-conference schedule and still managed to lose to UMASS. 

This is all pretty depressing, and yet I still tune in. I cringed every time the Bears tried to punch it in from inside the Rams' five during the second half on Sunday only to fail miserably almost every time.² I watched more Cubs games the past two seasons than I have my entire life and they lost 197 combined games during that stretch. I saw as much as I could of the Scarlet Knights' debacles against both Cincinnati and Central Florida wondering as they were happening why I was still watching.

The majority of sports fans consistently double as masochists, and I'm no different. I can't not-watch the games just because the teams are bad. It's not how I'm wired, and it's not why I watch in the first place. It's obviously preferable when the team wins, but that's not the important aspect here. It doesn't really matter if the Bears go 15-1 and shuffle through to a championship or shuffle through the likes of Rex Grossman, Jonathan Quinn, Craig Krenzel and Chad Hutchinson at quarterback in one season and go 5-11. What matters is that somehow through it all I still feel a connection to these guys. And this guy. 

Win or lose, sports have a way of bringing people together. I once spent an entire party talking to a guy I'd never met about whether Corey Crawford is good enough for the Blackhawks to win a Cup with him in goal or if they should pursue a trade for Cory Schneider.³ People have come up to me on the street, noticed my Chicago apparel, and apologized to me about Derrick Rose with such sincerity and pity as if mine was the torn meniscus. I've raised countless beers in the hopes that Rutgers could field consistently good teams, and expect to raise countless more.

Different teams win championships every year then go back to the drawing board to do it again. There will always be a new dynasty and historical performances. But when your teams aren't winning, it gives you a chance to focus on why you watch in the first place. 

^{1. Which, in its defense, is always bad, and I never put much faith in them.↩}

<sup>2. The Bears had 11 such plays during the second half, including 7 from the one. They scored on exactly one of these plays despite benefiting from three defensive penalties. To say that this was an exercise in futility would be an understatement.↩

3. As it turns out, sticking with Crawford turned out pretty well (link NSFW).↩</sup>