Why You Should Love College Sports (AKA "Why I Started This Meaningless Blog")

So I've gotten a few questions lately regarding Tailgate Talk:

1. "Why did you start this blog?" (which to me is loosely translated as: "You seem incredibly bored and pathetic, immediately delete this bullcrap".

AND

2. Something along the lines of "What do you want to accomplish with this blog?" (which, again, translates to me as something like: "I'm tired of seeing you post random picks and opinionated posts that are usually wrong".

Giving credit where credit is do, these questions do hold some weight and are mostly true. I really have no intention of promoting myself as a sportswriter or to make this thing anything like Barstool or any well-established location. I've also accepted the fact that no women are going to read this thing, so there's that. It's pretty much a meaningless blog at the core, but if these questions can be answered in any way, I'll say from a young age I became obsessed with college sports, college athletes and the college atmosphere probably more than a normal, healthy young kid should be. I fell in love with teams like Notre Dame football and Kevin Pittsnogle and West Virginia basketball back in like '05. I rode the emotional waves of Davidson and their magical run with Steph Curry and Boise State football and the famous Statue of Liberty play in '06 followed by the marriage proposal from Ian Johnson. I knew at worst case someday I would end up like these fans I saw on TV making a fool out of myself cheering for kids my own age and partying like every game is the Super Bowl. Even though I'm in college now and a (borderline) college athlete myself, I still find myself following these big-time college athletes like I'm still an awestruck 10 year-old. If I could say anything about why I started this meaningless blog (besides boredom) I would like to rattle off some reasons to love college sports:

The Upset

Probably the undisputed #1 reason to love college sports is the possibility of an upset. Whether, this be in the NCAA Tournament in basketball where a small school from Toadsuck, New Hampshire takes down Kentucky in the first round or a Division 1-AA school from Montana (formally known now as the FCS) goes on the road and beats Alabama. In pro sports most teams are the same. Yea, there can be minor upsets in the playoffs but in college these kids can make history and potentially their entire lives with one game or one play. In college there is always an opportunity for fans to get behind an underdog, something a lot of people love to support.

March Madness



Hands down, no better time of the year than March Madness. From filling out brackets that usually are eliminated from office pools after Day 1 to crying during One Shining Moment cause the tournament is over (that could be just me...), March Madness in College Basketball is in a league of its own in terms of sports traditions. I find myself getting more upset as the tournament goes on, not because my teams usually get eliminated (which they usually do), but mostly because with every game the tournament is nearing the end. There are upsets, there are blowouts. Tears and cheers. Oh, and this crazy drunk bastard named Gus Johnson who has the voice of an angel...



Saturdays in the Fall



Not that my days are so spectacular in their own right, but College Football Saturdays get me through my weeks during the fall. If your a fan at a huge school, good for you. You get to tailgate all day (and sometimes night) with your friends and thousands of other shitfaced random people in preparation for your school's football game. With pep rallys, the tailgate, the game and the after-party, the college football tradition is unique on college campuses around the country. It's awesome I envy it. But even for people like myself, at a school that has no football team and bars with 12-inch TV's, Saturdays in the fall are equally as enjoyable. They usually consist of maybe the mid-day workout (probably not, no one likes a hero) followed by an all-day event of college football games, beers, stupid drinking games made up during the games, good music and nice weather.



They're College Kids Just Like Me and You

(For those of you that don't know, the pictures above are of JJ Redick, quite possibly the greatest white college basketball player ever, crushing a Natty on the right and holding up the shocker on the left).

Anyways, the universal reason to love college sports is because of the amateurism. Sure there is a lot of sketchy shit going on in the NCAA these days, that can't be overlooked. However, at the end of the day, these kids are 18-22 years old. They go to class like the normal college kid, they eat at the dining halls like the normal college kid, and believe it or not, most of them party like the normal NARP. Yea, they might live a different lifestyle in many other ways, but college athletics are based around pride and passion. Most of these kids aren't going pro after four years and have to get a real job like the rest of us. And for us as fans it gives us something to relate to and players to fall in love with who could be in the cubicle next to us in a couple years.

So, yes this mostly is a place for me to write meaningless things about college sports, but there's my shot at explaining why I'm such a god damn loser about it.