Nothing ruins the moment of having your own personal sports column like realizing -or, in my case, being told by an outside source -that you made a factual error in its debut.
Because I decided to go above and beyond last week, actually researching facts to make myself sound intelligent, I overanalyzed Western Illinois and stated incorrectly that the school plays football in the Mid-Continent Conference.
Thankfully this error does not detract from my point that no one cares that Toledo blew out Western Illinois 62-14 during the NCAA's first week of action. And that just shows that it doesn't matter whether they are in the Mid-Continent Conference or Gateway Conference -the real home of the Roughnecks' football team. My case in point here is that there is nothing more frustrating than something so amazingly insignificant -like the score of a pointless football game -ruining one of these moments that do not occur everyday in life.
I'm not talking an MTV's Super Sweet 16 Daddy will not give me an extra thousand dollars to buy the perfect dress kind of moment. We're talking the happy ending gets ruined as the guy's who's about to get the girl gets shot to death kind of moment.
Pure and simple, it's a kick in the gut when life's going great.
Sadly, I had a few moments like that during Friday night's thrilling upset that our beloved Bobcats scored against Pitt.
To walk into Peden Stadium -filled with a record capacity crowd and animated by who knows how many pairs of ThunderStix waving and pounding a sporadic, never-ending rhythm -was quite awe-inspiring.
O-H-I-O chants roamed rampant through the student section, one picking up where another faded, and people truly were excited to be there. Victory Hill actually looked like another section of the stadium!
Maybe it was ESPN2, maybe it was a few drinks before the game, but I like to believe it was pure excitement and pride for being a Bobcat that fueled fans Friday night.
My excitement about all this started to fade, however, once the pregame started, and the chants of O-H-I-O did not fade during the moment of silence for victims of Hurricane Katrina and while the alma mater and national anthem melodically flowed from the 110.
To top it off, some people still left after the 110 played. No offense, but that is ridiculous. Apparently one of the best football games in Ohio history is not worth the price of admission.
As the game wore on, and people cheered Pitt injuries and chanted scathing things towards the Pitt bench and its players, the moment -mind you, a nationally televised football game with Ohio leading and eventually winning -was a bit tarnished.
Thankfully the Bobcats put on a show to end all shows and defeated Pitt in possibly the most dramatic game I will witness during my short time remaining here at Ohio.
That's the moment I will hold on to. Some things, be they errors in columns or inconsiderate fans, are not worth remembering.
-Shugar is a junior journalism major and sports editor for The Post. It'd be a great moment for him if you sent him some e-mail at ms314803@ohiou.edu.
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Mark Shugar
