Since we were not able to watch the USC/Notre Dame game, we asked the Substitute for his thoughts on the game. Unfortunately, his alma-mater, the perpetually snake-bitten San Diego St. Aztecs found yet another way to lose a game in heart-rending fashion on Saturday night. This time to New Mexico so this post is colored in that light.
It was the best of times. It was the worst of times. College Football, 2007. As a lifelong USC football fan, I only recognized it for what it was (penance) when I enrolled into San Diego State University 19 years ago and began life as an Aztec.
I had spent many a New Year's Day in the Rose Bowl as a youth, cheering the Trojans on to victory after victory. Heisman after Heisman. Even an occasional national championship thrown in for the fun of it. Combined with being fortunate enough to grow up in a time when the Dodgers and Lakers were regularly kicking tail (Celtics) and taking names, it seemed only fitting that my childhood life of privilege should be balanced by my choice of a university in which I would actually crack a book. SDSU fit that roleperfectly.
But after the first decade and a half of my sentence as a Montezuma Mesa veteran, I began to question the sporting gods about my sentence. Even during the BEST of Aztec sporting times. Got a Marshall Faulk in Red &Black? We'll give you a losing record and Gino Torreta. Got chip shot wins in your sights against Miami and USC? We'll send you a mean left-hook for your field goal kicker. Got a mas
sive halftime lead for the conference championship on your home field against your arch rival? We'll send you a second-half melt down. The next year: got an easy win for the conference championship against a winless foe? We'll get right on it with a rollover performance against the Running Rebels. Got a brand new state-of-the-artbasketball arena? We'll give you a coach that puts in his pudgy 5' 10" kid as a shooting guard. Finally get a bid to the NCAA's? We'll drop a 40 point lead on you by halftime. Come back for more March Madness a few yearslater? We'll let Indiana rip your heart at the last second in Round 1.
sive halftime lead for the conference championship on your home field against your arch rival? We'll send you a second-half melt down. The next year: got an easy win for the conference championship against a winless foe? We'll get right on it with a rollover performance against the Running Rebels. Got a brand new state-of-the-artbasketball arena? We'll give you a coach that puts in his pudgy 5' 10" kid as a shooting guard. Finally get a bid to the NCAA's? We'll drop a 40 point lead on you by halftime. Come back for more March Madness a few yearslater? We'll let Indiana rip your heart at the last second in Round 1. The football stadium (an off-campus venue that most of the nation knows as a sun-splashed festival of powder blue and gold on Sundays) is actually a cavernous black hole on Saturday night where the most densely packed section of people in the entire venue are the two teams on the sidelines.
And those are the good times. The fact that Aztec Nation has spent tens and hundreds of millions upgrading its athletic facilities to state of the art almost across the board (insert on-campus football stadium here) makes the frustration all the more. True. There are very positive signs on the "second tier" sports (sorry, women'sbasketball). But the Big Two: Football and basketball remain the subject, across the nation, of the oft-repeated comment: "Gee. San Diego State. I don't understand why they don't have a better football team." When you figure it out, brother, please send university President Stephen Weber your resume'.
If nothing else, in this the year of the college football upset, you would think just once the Aztecs could pull a big one (Perhaps they arewaiting for next year at Notre Dame. Not that Notre Dame is considered to be much of anything right now. But, you know...) or have a good season. Not so much. They are basically on track to repeat last year's 3-winperformance.
Two years ago about this time, hope for the football team with this writer was sky-high when the SDSU A.D. said the magic words: "We will spare no expense in securing a quality and name-brand football coach for San DiegoState... We want to demonstrate our commitment to the program." What they got was Chuck Long. Talk about taking the air out the balloon. The moment they leaked the hire to the press, I knew my sentence of mediocrity was extended 10 years. Even the hiring of Long was clouded in scandal regarding the payment to a "head hunter" of thousands of dollars who had conflict-of-interest links. And on and on it goes. If I were king for a day, I'd find a way of having SDSU play in a BCS conference. The fact that they do not is really the heart of the matter. It all radiates out from there.
Since I'm not king, I'm going back to my cell and plug in the tape of the suddenly revived Trojans 38-0 crushing of Notre Dame yesterday, and re-live my youth.- The Substitute (contrary to the below format default, NOT "Dean")
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