Monday Musings: Apathy

Apathy

ap*a*thy

/ˈapəTHē/

noun

lack of interest, enthusiasm, or concern.

“widespread apathy among students” (isn’t that fitting?)

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Lack of interest, enthusiasm, or concern...Lack of interest, enthusiasm, or concern...Lack of interest, enthusiasm, or concern...Lack of interest, enthusiasm, or concern...

For the first time in my sports life, I have reached the pinnacle of pure apathy. Kids and work and family and responsibilities are making it harder and harder for me to give my all to these sports franchises and programs that continue to talk the talk but stumble when they try to walk. Even though my heart wants to be fully invested and I want to care (i.e. I want to continue to be utterly pissed off at every failed offensive set or missed tackle or player only meeting after one effing game), I’m having an existential crisis about being “All-In” (something Jerry Reinsdorf and Kirk Ferentz and the McCaskey family ultimately understand, but for mind numbingly different reasons).

I don’t think I’m alone right now.

Like some of you, I grew up outside of Chicago. My father has two Bears tattoos on his body (along with a Tasmanian Devil with a Michael Jordan jersey and a giant White Sox logo). I grew up watching the ‘85 Bears on a VHS tape instead of the Ninja Turtles. Mike Ditka, Walter Payton and Mike Singletary were the Holy Trinity in my house. I may have thought I had a choice in the matter (I told my dad I was a Vikings fan once in high school and he told me to leave his house...I think he was joking), but the Chicago Bears were all but in my blood.

I don’t know many kids of the 90’s that grew up in the Midwest that didn’t gravitate to the GOAT (or, if you’re like me, Scottie Pippen) but ultimately I did and now the once glorious Chicago Bulls are now my burden as well. I’m still not sure who sold my future sports happiness for those two sets of 3-peats, but I’d like to have a nice long chat with that person ASAP.

And then there is Iowa. I chose them. Well, they kind of chose me because I thought it would be funny to be an ass to my childhood best friend that liked Seneca Wallace. Sports fandom can be funny like that. Either way, great choice kid! Really stuck the landing on that one.

You see my point.

My one little outlet that is supposed to inspire hope that “ANYTHING IS POSSIBLE” isn’t providing much of, well, anything POSITIVE these days. It is so much a downer that I’d rather spend my time apple picking or going to weddings. I half mean that too!

The rest of college and NFL football doesn’t even feel as fun right now because I know that my two favorite teams are not the same as those juggernauts at the top. Football as a whole just makes me itchy.

Don’t even get my started on the “Just-run-it-back-and-maybe-it-will-work-out-a-Bulls” that only want to sell their fans on the possibility of the playoffs because that’s the Reinsdorf sweet spot.

It makes me want to dry heave.

While we all might not share the same fall/winter Big-3, the other choices are all oddly infuriating right now too. Even the Packer-lovers among you have to be pretty, pretty, pretty annoyed right about now. Vikings fans, pull up a seat to my table of misery.

None of it is fun. None if it provides any joy. And they’re all just so predictably annoying.

So much so, that at half time of the Bears game on Sunday Night Football, I turned on SNL and then watched reruns of The Office. I saw everything I needed to see in those two quarters. So much of the same.

My new Holy Trinity might as well be Michael Scott, Dwight K. Schrute and Keenan Thompson. What a shame.

Lack of interest, enthusiasm, or concern...

And that brings me to this Saturday. Wrigley Field. Northwestern and Iowa in the lowest O/U game in College Football history! YOU CANNOT MISS THIS!

Or you absolutely can because Iowa won’t score. Northwestern won’t score. And Iowa will probably win 9-6.

Or Northwestern will win 10-9.

Or it’ll go into 17 overtimes until someone wins 15-12.

I don’t think these two teams could get to “500” in my backyard after throwing one “500-dead-or-alive” bomb.

Again, ¯\_(ツ)_/¯.

I hate to be like this... it’s really not in my nature, but I’m older and I’m wiser and I know that until New Kirk updates his offensive iOS, nothing really matters. You have to play offense for four quarters to score points. Not to exclusively kill the clock.

Iowa under Kirk Ferentz can absolutely, positively make a 12-team playoff if they decided to give half-a-deuce about upgrading their offensive scheme and recruiting the players to make that scheme work. But we know they wont until New Kirk rides off into the sunset.

So until then, it all just feels ¯\_(ツ)_/¯.

If they’re going to have a lack of interest, enthusiasm, or concern about their offense, then why should I have any interest, enthusiasm, or concern about this program? Sure, it’ll be on, but I’m tired of gorging on the empty calories.

I’m sorry. I truly don’t mean to be like this but I’ve finally had the interest, enthusiasm and concern beat out of me and until something REAL happens to change the course of any of these Godforsaken teams, my apathy will only continue to grow.