Fandom: Are the highs higher than the lows are low?

I can avoid the lows altogether by just not being a fan.  The reason you are a fan is because of the highs you can get when "your team" wins big.  The lows are merely the price of admission. 

When the lows become excessive and the chance of highs is remote, people don't bother being fans.  What's the point?  That's why there aren't a lot of Eastern Michigan fans.

 

 

and other things in life that you look forward to and anticipate- should be approached with hope, not expectations.  Expectations can be difficult to achieve.  And unmet expectations get me frustrated and can steal the joy of what overall is a great experience.

Hoping the boys have a good couple of weeks getting ready for the B1G schedule!

I've always thought that winning is great, but not losing is the real incentive. Losing a ball game is devastating. It feels like a repudiation of everything you stand for. It will make you doubt yourself. It is awful. This is compounded when you play at a program like Michigan, that has such a history and takes such pride in it. When you run out of the tunnel, you feel the weight of the expectations of all those fans and, more significantly, all of the great players who paid for the legacy that you are trying to uphold with their blood, sweat, and tears. At Michigan, coaches always told you how no man is more important than the team, how you are a part of something far bigger than yourself, and so on. This can be a burden, and makes winning an expectation and losing a disaster.

I see it three ways. To be a competitor losing always hurts more than winning feels good. To succeed you have to hate losing more than you love winning. From a societal standpoint I think it's changed over the years. People almost would rather feel aggrieved than happy. It's partly that people would now seem to prefer rubbing other people's failures in their face than bask in their own success. After UTL (1) there were lots of people here who wanted to complain THAT NIGHT. Not a few days later, analytically, but their emotional reaction after that wasn't "that was AMAZING" but "we suck." We've become a people that can't enjoy anything. Biologically I think there's a contributing factor. Maybe it goes back to learning on a hot stove, but bad memories stick with us. Our happiest times like a marriage or childbirth are really high...but if you think about the memory years later it akes you feel nice, but doesn't overwhelm you. Now think about the worst things that have happen to you...a death in the family or the like. And you might have to choke back tears. The highs are higher than the lows are low, usually, but they don't last as long.

just why I care so much, but I can't seem to help it. Maybe in a sick way it's like gambling or drugs - Harbaugh hit Kolesar vs OSU when I was a frosh, and I was hooked for life. The brain gets that rush of pleasure chemicals and relentlessly demands more, forever.

I think all fanbases, in all sports, in all cultures, are like this. I was living in Colombia during the '94 World Cup, and their squad was a dark horse favorite to go deep, maybe to the semis or even possibly win. When they didn't even make it out of their group...I can't even explain the devastation people felt.

I've tried to temper my own emotional commitment thus:

In 1997 we won the national title, had a Heisman winner, etc, and no one reduced my rent, gave me an exciting new job, etc

During the RRod years we sunk to the depths, and no one increased my mortgage, came to break my legs, take my daughter away, etc.

I've been to the top of the mountain and to the bottom of the sea. It doesn't change anything important about my life one way or the other. So I try to enjoy the highs as if they mattered, and when the lows come I remind myself that they don't.

Well in a situation like last night and last weekend, of course the lows drastically outweigh the highs? Let's say we beat up on Akron and UConn: that's cool, but everyone expected us to do that anyway. Not much of a high to be gained from that, whereas if you lose, the lows get really, really low. An opposite situation would be with the Alabama game last year. Most of us didn't lose a ton of sleep over losing that game last year because we were expected to lose. But if we'd won, you could've expected national championship talk on this board for the whole season.

It's alright to feel crummy after a loss. It shows you care. Just as long as you don't let that feeling carry over into your personal and professional life. Yes, football is great, but at the end of the day, its only a game.

when they lose i get very down on myself because i am wasting my life watching football (when I could be with my kid, a million more productive things). When they win--especially a good win, like with ND--I am so ridiculously elated that I have to laugh at myself for investing so much in a dumb game. 

i'm still on the fence about this team. In 97 I was living in SF and used to go to a bar full of M fans in North Beach--thrilling. Then I got wrapped up again in the RichRod era, and Denard. Now I feel like i could maybe wander off again for a while. 

Different strokes. I watch almost every bball game, and feel like I'll never give that up, at least as long as Beilein is around. 

It's hard to have high highs and easy to have very low lows when your expectations are high.  We don't really experience emotions as an absolute value--it's usually relative to a reference point.  Think about how in a personal relationship a person for whom you have high expectations can really disappoint you in a way that somebody for whom you have low (or no) expectations cannot.  Conversely, a person for whom you have low or no expectations can wildly exceed them (as unlikely as it is) in a way that somebody for whom you have high expectations cannot. 

I'm no expert in psychology, but I would guess following a team is the same way.  Michigan going 11-2 and beating Ohio was great in 2011 because not many people expected it.  Last year probably hurt worse than 2010 or 2009 because expectations were higher, even though on-the-field results were better.

As a particularly obsessive subset of fans, even to the extent that mgoblog contributors are a knowledgeable group, the natural tendancy is to have high expectations for the team.  Thus, easier to disappoint and harder to really impress.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/9811365

http://newswise.com/articles/testosterone-levels-rise-in-fans-of-winnin…

Yes, I would agree with you. When we win, I feel secure, satisfied. When we lose, it feels like a tremendous disappointment, like the rug was pulled out from under me. I would say it lasts two or three days, tops. I go through the stages, the worst being incredulity: how could this happen? I don';t understand. I trusted people - players and coaches and the media - who all were wrong. I'm also slightly embarrassed, like I was on that field. I make it known to anyone and everyone that I'm a Michigan fan, so when we lose, I feel like it's a reflection on me and my abilities. 

with absurd levels of success year after year is that the expectation, no matter how unrealistic, is ridiculously high every single year. As a result, there really isn't more than about 3 games a season, bowl included,  in which fans take much satisfaction in a win,  and any other game that turns out badly is simply a disappointment. 

Think about it. There is far more disappointment in losing to just about anybody other than TOSU than there is satisfaction in beating them. 

Personally, I almost skipped the Akron game, but then tuned in for what was an exciting (not necessarily good, mind you, but exciting) game of football. Same for UConn.

I don't understand the arrogance of Michigan fans; it's not enough to win, we have to slaughter the competition when we don't consider them up to our level? And to rag on the Michigan players? These seem like good kids, and they're playing their hearts out for Michigan, and when things go badly we're supposed to give up on them? And that makes us "fans"? Is that what you do to your own kids when they play sports? Whatever...

Not to say that we should tolerate sub-par performance; coaches should field the best players, and set high expectations. If the coaches aren't doing their jobs well, they should be replaced (not that I'm calling for that).  But how about we stand behind our team and support them, rather than drag them down and give up on them?