Column:

Take Tigers' success with excitement and enthusiasm

By Dieter Kurtenbach

Published Sept. 29, 2008

The saying is very common: "You don't know what you have until it is taken away." This weekend we were taken away from our beloved Missouri Tigers football team. This separation might have been tough for some, and a much needed rest for others, but above all I hope it was a time of reflection for the MU student. A time to look at how lucky we are as a school to have a football team this strong, and a time as sports fans to really take in the wonder that is this time of year.

With the Tigers being off and my beloved White Sox laying an epically large egg, I personally had a lot of time to watch college football this weekend. How wonderful college football is. Just using my cut-rate basic cable I was able to watch four games nearly concurrently. I was able to watch the great Ole Miss-Florida game, where the underdog Mississippi defeated the heavily favored Gators in "The Swamp." I also was able to catch the fourth quarter of the Oregon State victory over then-No. 1 Southern California. As the orange-clad OSU fans ran to celebrate with the team on the field, I wondered, "Will MU fans ever get to experience that again?" And with both sadness and happiness, I will have to say no.

The ascent of the Tigers' football program from crap to mediocre to perennial powerhouse, as it seems we are now, has been so fast I doubt we will be able to comprehend it years from now. This weekend I took to task the enjoyment of the games, something that I seemingly haven't been able to partake in during the past year here at MU. There is no longer the joy of beating Goliath, only the pressure of not being hit in the temple with a David slingshot.

In the last game MU played it had its best defensive performance of the year. Yet the overall tone was that of sadness and discontent because of three offensive fumbles and giving up 21 points.

But they won!

Right now Missouri has the favorite candidate to win the Heisman Trophy in Chase Daniel, along with superstars and NFL top prospects on both sides of the ball. We are ranked in the top five and got a vote for No 1. To the students of MU and fans of the football team, I quote the great Ferris Bueller.

"Life goes by pretty fast. If you don't stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it."

College football is a great sport and right now we MU fans are acting like spoiled brats. I recall some brutal games for the Tigers and the euphoria when we cracked the top 25 for the first time. I still have the newspaper clippings. I don't recall the student body being in disarray over the close win over Iowa State last year. Yet so much has changed. Obviously we did not know how great last year's team was at that point, but as much as the national respect for MU has changed for the better, our attitudes have changed even faster. We are building ourselves up too high. No one ever talks about how tall the building was after it crumbles. Just ask those Trojans from beautiful Southern California. I bet they wished they would have tempered their enthusiasm. I certainly hope their fans got refundable airline tickets to Miami.