Our Indiana Hoosiers Football team has won the National Championship.
You can read about it everywhere. Probably hard to escape, because it’s the best story in sports right now, or perhaps ever: how the team that had lost a record number of games went undefeated this season, going 16-0, a feat not achieved since Yale did it sometime in the 19th century. And they did it with a Heisman-winning quarterback who seems near-perfect as a human being as well as a football player.
I’m new to the possessive first-person pronouns here, having arrived in Bloomington only five years ago. I’ve been hanging out with people who have been Hoosier natives and fans for generations. To call this victory gratifying and uplifting for them is the height of understatement. This is a deeply personal moment. I’m just glad the Hoosiers won, and grooving on their amazing story.
However, while correlation is not causation, I would like to point out that sports success seems to follow me. During my two decades in North Carolina, Duke, NC State and UNC became big basketball winners. Duke became an overdog after I became a devoted fan living in California.
When I came to the Bay Area in the mid-’80s, the 49ers became something of a dynasty. The Giants and the Athletics were such hot shit that they played each other in the ’87 World Series, causing the Loma Prieta earthquake.
After we moved to Boston in ’07, the Patriots went undefeated*, the Red Sox won the World Series, and the Celtics won the NBA championship. And the winnings persisted.
And now we’re in Bloomington. So it follows.
Keep going, Hoo Hoo Hoo Hoosiers!
*But they lost to the NY Giants in the Super Bowl, leading to one of The Onion’s best stories, ever.
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