There is a very strange realization I came to tonight:

Fans of my alma mater believe that who we were define who we are.

And I do not.

I was with this girl tonight. She is Missouri-born and a Tiger fan through and through. She loves this team. She actually understands football.

And tonight, when the Mizzou-Arizona State game went to overtime, she immediately said: “We’re going to choke.”

I asked her why, and she said, “Because Mizzou always does.”

And that’s thinking I used to be able to get behind. But lately, something’s changed.

See, when I showed up at this school, Mizzou wasn’t very good at sports. We lost. Always. And usually in rip-your-heart-out fashion.

But since I’ve been here: We’ve won far more than we’ve lost. We’ve beaten the #1 team in the country. Been ranked #1. Been to two Big 12 title games. Won a New Year’s Day bowl.

Longtime Mizzou fans forget this, though. Because in their minds, we’ve always been bad, and we always will be. Even when we’re winning. Even when we’re beating the #1 team in the country.

For them, past is present.

I don’t think like that anymore. I’ve rooted for a lot of bad teams. I’ve seen a Maryland football team get dominated by Ohio. Not Ohio State. OHIO University. I’ve seen teams like American and William & Mary beat my beloved Terps basketball team. I’ve seen the Redskins falter and falter. I’ve seen my Caps fall again and again.

My hometown of Washington, D.C., is closing in on Cleveland as America’s worst sports town. This is not a good thing.

But what I am certain of is this: It is the hard times that make the big wins that much sweeter. As a fan, we need losses like tonight’s. We need to be demolished sometimes.

Because one of these days, a win will come along that reminds us of why we watch in the first place. And it will be all the sweeter because of it.

I believe in the future of Missouri football. I believe there will be heartbreak, and I believe there will be greatness.

And I am damn sure that I will be out at a bar rooting hard for those Tigers every Saturday. I’ll be watching because I believe: Good things come this way.

I hope next Saturday brings better things for my Tigers. I really do.

I was in fourth grade, a kid at this giant tournament in this tiny town, and it was impossible not to feel like it was all happening, and I was right there for it. I felt very, very big.

I’m lucky enough to have been to three ACC tournaments since then — plus two Missouri Valley Conference tournaments when I was out in school in Columbia, Mo. — but when I’m not at the games in person, I’m watching on TV. And I’m watching all of them: the CAA, the SoCon, the MWC, the WCC. It’s the only week of the year where I can be caught screaming during a Sun Belt game, and any decent fan (or roommate) will understand why. There’s great basketball on all day, every day, for an entire week leading up to Selection Sunday. There’s not a more fun week of the entire year.

Now, there’s nothing quite like the in-person spectacle of the ACC Tournament when the teams are great, but no tournament quite translates to on-the-couch viewing like the Big East Tournament. The games are always played up at Madison Square Garden, for one. The history of tournament is excellent. The crowds — especially for big rivalries, like UConn-Syracuse — are loud, and the Garden just seems to amplify whatever the crowd throws into the game.

But for me, the Big East Tournament is all about two guys: Jay Bilas and Bill Raftery.

They’re two of the color guys on ESPN, and they’re always assigned to the Big East Tournament. Always. The Big East Tournament now goes five days, during which they’ll call nine games. (ESPN, in a sign of mercy, doesn’t make them work all four games on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday.) And when a game is good — and Big East Tournament games always are, especially as the weekend draws near — there aren’t many better than Bilas and Raftery.

You don’t listen to a game Bilas and Raftery are calling. You watch it with them.

So this is my way of giving back for all those years of watching Championship Week. Here’s a little audio ditty I put together this morning, full of some of my favorite moments from Raftery, the announcer with enthusiasm that television speakers can’t contain. Thanks for being part of my favorite week of the year, Bill.

One Minute of Onions by earlyonions

In my three months in Biloxi, the question that’s been my “Do you play basketball?” is, “What’s your favorite story from down here?” I’ve been told of miracles and horrors, and I’ve become intimately familiar with the inner workings of both local government and insurance contracts. But my favorite story to write down here didn’t have anything to do with rebuilding homes or fighting BP. It’s about — and my mother could have predicted this for you a few months ago, for the record — football.

Specifically, an ex-football coach I interviewed during my first week in Biloxi. Here’s one of those stories that, in any other journalism job, I don’t find. It’s almost wholly unrelated to the rebuilding efforts in Biloxi, at least at surface level, and its central character isn’t intimately connected to any of the subjects I’ve covered down here⁽¹⁾. No rational boss says, Sure, Dan, spend an hour on a Thursday afternoon talking to a guy who doesn’t have any leads for you.

But here’s a story that I got by 1.) Not being in a rush, and 2.) Being okay with wasting a few minutes and listening. The result: the story that I had the most fun writing.

You can go back to asking me how the weather is up here, Biloxi.

(N.B. The photo above is from a D’Iberville HS football game last month. It has no connection to anything I’ve written above other than that it involves a football.)

In the fall of 2007, I decided that I wanted to study abroad. The rationale was simple: I was running out of classes to take at the University of Missouri, and also, I could get away with it. Seemed logical enough at the time.

I decided that I’d go to Spain, and the study abroad office at Mizzou gave me a few options. I took the brochures home, studied the pictures intently, and then did what seemed right.

I Googled to see which of these places had the best soccer teams.

I settled upon Alicante, a sprawling seaside city just south of Valencia. They had miles of beaches, a busy bar district and, most importantly, two soccer teams. The first was Alicante CF, a third division team that made a remarkable run that spring and was promoted to the second division. ⁽¹⁾ The other was second division Hercules CF, my team of choice, with a color scheme of royal blue and French’s mustard yellow, and a large Greek bust as their crest.

I’d be lying if I said Hercules was an great team that year. They were bums. But they were my bums, and I loved them for it. They were just good enough to avoid being sent down to third division, and just bad enough to stay well clear of the promotional zone. ⁽²⁾ I went to games, I cheered, and I even bought a scarf from a street vendor. I’d have bought a jersey, too, but Hercules wasn’t good enough to have a team store. I’d have gone beer for beer with Hercules fans, but Hercules had neither fans nor beer. ⁽³⁾

This was not a team that featured many star athletes. Some teams put their best players on posters. Hercules put Jesus.

Jesus can save, I suppose, but he can’t score. That’s why the year I studied abroad, Hercules finished in sixth place in the second division, almost entirely on the strength of star midfielder Tote. Tote carried the team again in 2008-9, when the team finished fourth, just points away from promotion to La Liga.

This seemed alright with me. Hercules were bums, and I felt that they belonged somewhere right in the middle of second division. In a way, their continued mediocrity reminded me that the city I’d studied abroad in hadn’t gotten too big for its own good.

But then this season, the breakthrough came. I checked the box scores and the post-game reports weekly. I watched as Hercules got out far ahead of the pack, seven points clear of the third place team in the second division. Tote and the boys were a lock to advance to La Liga. But I also watched as that lead disappeared, as Hercules’ new fans panicked and called for the coach’s head.

Alicante, it seemed, would be spared success in the end.

And then, with two weeks to go in the season, my bums got a break. The two teams ahead of them choked; Hercules, meanwhile, got an 87th minute goal and a 2-1 win. In the last game, all Hercules needed to do was beat Real Union, the second-worst team in second division. Win, and Hercules was headed to La Liga. But, I reminded myself, the game was on the road, and besides, this was Hercules. I prepared myself for humiliation.

And then they won.

I don’t know how long it will last — the last time Hercules made La Liga, in 1996, they were sent back down at season’s end. But I do know that next season, Real Madrid and Barcelona, among others, will come to Alicante, Spain, to play. And a team that was lucky to draw a few thousand fans two years ago will be playing in front of a packed house.

I’m not sure how I feel about this yet. I fell in love with a group of bums. But now that they’re in La Liga, they’re heroes. Their fans might be able to buy overpriced Hercules gear in an actual team store, or use bathrooms that have actual working sinks. Their games might actually be broadcast on American ESPN. People might actually expect them to win. It will be different. Not better, necessarily, but different.

It was easy to love them as some second-division bums who nobody had ever heard of. It was easy to root for them because I didn’t have to take them too seriously.

But now that they’re champions? Now that Leo Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo will be coming to town? It’s all becoming real. I’m suddenly forced to make a decision: do I take my level of fandom up a notch? I root for the Terps, the Caps, the Nats and the Tigers. Do I start really rooting for Hercules too?

It was all so much easier when they were just bums.

The first thought was that I was being pranked. Sure, I’d just written a fairly controversial column about why the Spurs should trade Tony Parker for Kens5.com. It had generated quite a few hits on our website, and I’d gotten plenty of e-mail feedback from readers about it.

But a radio station in New York City calling to ask if they could chat about the column? That’s a first.

And yet, I made my Big Apple debut on ESPN 1050 Wednesday night, talking with Bill Daughtry about, of all things, San Antonio Spurs basketball. And for a full 10 minutes. For loyal danoshinsky.com readers who missed it live, I’ve recaptured it below. Next week, I hope to land 20 minutes talking all things Matt Bonner on a morning show in Milwaukee.

So when I found out today that someone who we all went to elementary school with was joining an American football team in Spain, it seemed implausible. At work, I run three different Twitter clients at all times. I have a cell phone, a landline, a Google Voice number, an actively updating Facebook news feed and at least three email accounts. How the hell had I not heard about this already? ⁽¹⁾

Usually, when anything semi-important happens involving someone at home — say, two kids from my high school getting their Cal Tech-certified game theory paper on waiting for the bus published in the New York Times Magazine — I know about it. But this one had eluded the listserv, apparently.

I emailed into the group to see what the word was. A response came back: “not true, i — and i thought others — knew about this like a week ago if not more?”

A week? Three constantly updating Twitter feeds — and I was behind by a week?

I searched my Gmail account. No word of any Spanish football league teams. I emailed my friend back: Was there some alternate, super-secret listserv circulating?

Then the response came:

“The secret listserv you refer to is in fact the technologically archaic word-of-mouth.”

Oh.

Another, studying abroad: “even i knew and i am in a third world country living in a rice village.”

And worst of all, from my mother: “Actually, I knew that.”

I cannot un-know what I know. I cannot reverse time. I cannot deny what has happened.

But I cannot imagine going on knowing that one day, fourteen years ago, I may have accidentally rooted for Kansas.

¶¶

My dad used to do a bit of work with the D.C.-area Boys and Girls Club, which was affiliated with the D.C. police, which was the reason why dad always ended up as the policeman in my elementary school’s annual Sock Hop production of the “YMCA.” But it’s also the reason why we ended up at a fundraiser for the Boys and Girls Club, this one put on by the Washington Redskins.

The MC that night was Chris Berman. He did a couple “back back back” jokes, the DJ played “Hail to the Redskins,” and then Berman tossed it to the live auction.

One of the items was a trip to Kansas City to see the Redskins play. I do not know why — I was only 7 at the time, and I’d never been to Missouri before — but I asked my dad if I could bid on it. He said yes.

He thought I’d bid once or twice and get out of it.

I wanted to win.

The ballroom must’ve held a thousand people, maybe more, so it’s understandable why the auctioneer didn’t initially notice my arm shooting into the air. But around $300, my Uncle Sol caught his eye and gave him a wave in my direction.

“$300,” he said, and pointed at me.

This being my first live auction, I was unfamiliar with the bidding process. I didn’t notice other people taking their hands down after bidding. So even after the auctioneer pointed at me, I kept my arm up. He looked elsewhere. Someone bid $350. He looked back at me.

“$400,” he said.

My arm stayed in the air.

It went on like this for a few more rounds. Dad told me to stop bidding; my hand stayed in the air. But by then, it was too late. It was down to just me and one other contender.

I bid, and the auctioneer looked at the other bidder. He was consulting with his wife. How much was too much to spend on a mid-November trip to Kansas City? he was surely asking. She gave him a look. His arm stayed by his side.

“Going once,” the auctioneer said. His eyes swept the room. He caught my eye. My hand was still in the air.

“You can’t bid against yourself,” he said. The entire room laughed.

When the room quieted, he asked for a second time, and then a third, but the other bidder didn’t match.

¶¶

When you’re seven, it’s only the weird things that stick out. Going to Kansas City, I remember we flew Midwest Express out of the old terminal at National Airport, and I remember that the stewardesses gave us real silverware to eat our in-flight meal with. I remember that we stopped in Milwaukee, and that dad wanted to buy me a Green Bay Packers cheese head. (I wasn’t interested.) I remember going to a barbecue place in Kansas City, where they used paint brushes to slather sauce on their brisket sandwiches, and where the food was wrapped in the Sunday edition of the Kansas City Star. (The barbecue place turned out to be the legendary Arthur Bryant’s.) I remember the omelete bar at the hotel, and I remember regretting having gone through six or seven eggs at breakfast before the flight back to D.C.

The game itself was less memorable. We had seats in the upper deck behind one of the benches. It was cold. The Redskins lost, and I remember Brian Mitchell dropping a pass in the end zone on a 4th down. The box score doesn’t provide much help: the Redskins ran through Gus Frerotte and Heath Shuler at QB that day. It didn’t matter. They lost, 24-3.

But it’s this other memory that’s started to bother me.

¶¶

Not having anything to do on a Saturday in Kansas City, my dad and I decided to drive out to Lawrence, Kan., to see a football game.

I’d long since forgotten the opponent, but I was thinking about the game yesterday, and I checked in with Google to see if it could offer any answers. I tracked down the date of the Redskins-Chiefs game, and then cross-checked it with the KU football schedule.

The day was Nov. 4, 1995, and I watched as the Kansas Jayhawks beat the Missouri Tigers, 42-23. That’s what the box score says, but I don’t remember it. My memories from that day are hollow: a long, flat stretch of highway out to Lawrence; a half-empty stadium; and something about a giant drum. I can’t know for sure, but I’d guess that my dad and I cheered for Kansas that day.

What I didn’t know is that a decade later, I’d be enrolling at the University of Missouri.

¶¶

It’s weird, now, but I feel almost wronged by the memory. There is the Chase Daniel cover of Sports Illustrated hanging next to my bed. There is a Brad Smith jersey hanging in the closet. There is a copy of the Mizzou alumni magazine on the coffee table.

And then there is this memory, of a chilly fall day, of a horseshoe stadium, of a rivalry game that I didn’t fully understand.

A decade later, I’d fall in love with one of those teams. I’d plan my Saturdays around their Saturdays, and their glory would become my glory.

But on Nov. 4, 1995, I’m afraid that I rooted for the wrong one.

I wish I’d known then. I wish I didn’t know now.