Introduction to #Boomerica: 111

My Desk/Independence Day

There's a cubicle at work, way off in the corner of the office. Officially, it's listed on the call sheet as "intern desk," but it's been my personal home these last two months, as my specific line of work requires a computer on a daily basis.

The full time staff member who sits directly beside me is the team's official internship coordinator. She's definitely a good one, at that, so it makes it easy to work with her on a daily basis regarding a variety of subjects.

Last week, she handed out a form for all the nterns to fill out and told me mine was "on your desk."

It was such a little term, but it made me feel like I belong. While truly anyone could use that desk, it's been basically understood that Jeremy is the one who uses it.

Again, this was just a small occurrence that I was the only one who noticed, but it helped me take another step toward really believing that I really belong in this profession.


Another happening last week gave me an even greater confidence boost. I was restocking the fridge in the press box when I realized that my boss had no idea where I was or what I was doing... and he was OK with that. He trusted me enough to set me free on the stadium and believe that I would do all the work I needed to do. That made me feel accomplished as a worker and realize that maybe I'm doing something right. It's certainly my goal to earn this level of trust across the board.

Introduction to #Boomerica: 110

Juggling Act

This summer has been great. It's also been difficult in more ways than I care to remember, but it's also been the best summer of my life.

With my job at the Schaumburg Boomers taking up so much of my time, I haven't had the chance to do much else other than work, and try to recover from the long days in my downtime. But that hasn't stopped life outside of this internship from happening, a life lesson that I would be wise to remember for the long term.

Outside of my sometimes 7am-Midnight job, I've been trying to prepare for this coming school year, which may see me take a greater leadership role than ever before. Hand-in-hand with that goes getting the school paper ready and trying to set up how things will work this year, along with setting a staff that is still incomplete.

But wait, there's more.

I'm also trying my hardest to get ready for my best friend's wedding, helping plan and coordinate as much as I'm needed there, all while trying to spend quality time with my lovely fiancee and her wonderful family.

Oh yeah, and starting to plan my own wedding.

Needless to say, there aren't enough hours in a day.

I wouldn't trade this summer for anything, and it has taught me so much about things far greater than how to be a sports PR writer, but that doesn't mean it hasn't been overly trying at times. Sometimes the lessons that we learn the most from come in the most difficult ways.

Right now, I hope to be doing three things:

1. Setting up a solid future. Paying my dues now to earn a better life later.

2. Solidifying relationships. All of them. Showing how much even a few minutes mean to me if I'm spending it with someone else.

3. Learning. Everything I possibly can.

This post may seem a bit redundant from my earlier musings, but that doesn't take away its place as possibly the biggest thing I'm learning now, and maybe forever.

Now on to more internshippy stuff:

This week The Onion was in the building to shoot a commercial. That was a really cool experience. And Andrew Luck is quite large.

I'm learning to be more independent, finding things to do when my supervisor is too busy to assign every task.

I've sold two luxury suites to clients in the past two weeks. Technically three, but two under my name. That's a pretty cool feeling.

The idea of my player feature piece in the program is quite exciting. And I'm not even done with it yet. I hope to spearhead an effort to get the piece online with pictures, video, and the full 900-word article.

The lost-and-found spreadsheet is working. We haven't returned anything in the last week, but everyone seems to know how it works and who to go to: me. I'll chalk that one up to Conference Services experience.

We're about to embark on eight games in seven days. Geesh. This is going to test everyone in every way.

I want to do one more big thing before my time is over (in less than a month). Not sure what that is yet, but I'll figure it out.

I get to be Coop three more times.

Let's do this.

Introduction to #Boomerica: 109

Writing the Ship

Until a couple weeks ago, I hadn't written a single feature piece during my time with the Boomers.

Dozens of bios? Yes.

Many, many game reports? Yes.

Countless promo pieces for games? Oh yes.

But I felt like something missing from my summer portfolio, and from the Boomers team entirely, was more of a behind-the-curtain look at some of the incredible players we have on our team. So I went to my boss and told him my idea, which another intern told me he shared: We wanted to write feature stories on two of the Boomers' most popular players, partially in hopes of drawing fans out to the ballpark to see who we think will be their new favorite players.

This reminded me of something that happened in school

I noticed a stark difference between journalism majors and writing majors my sophomore year when I took a writing major class with a couple of my journalism major friends (Shoutout to Molly, and also PR major Hannah). When coming up with story ideas, I felt like writing majors just blurted out every idea they thought of and stuck to it, while this can certainly be a good thing, it left the few journalism majors in the class wondering "That's a great idea, but what's the purpose?"

Journalism majors were all about the purpose, but in this summer's situation I felt like the tables had turned.

Now it was my boss who was asking "What's the purpose" of a feature article at a minor league baseball club?

My answer: It gets fans more invested in the team, and a bigger reason to come out and watch their favorite players instead of just the team as a whole.

Two days later I was sitting in the dugout with one of my personal favorite players on the team, Gerard, talking about his life experiencecs and what brought him to Schaumburg. Three days after that, I completed one of my own favorite things I've ever written, an article that gave me the excited feeling I so rarely get while typing.

A few quick hits from the experience:

It was great to get back to feature writing; telling stories like I love to do.

The newspaper/magazine business is totally different than sports PR. When I asked my boss for a word count, he said there wasn't one. Then we found out that 500 words would be stretching it based on how much I could fit in my print medium. Cue me cutting my 900-word story down to 450.

I also got the chance to make my own graphic for this story, which will be published in the Booomers' second half program. The illustration features Gerard running around the bases in an all black-and-white photo except for his signature orange shoes, with title on the side of the frame in white, except for the bottom word, which was a matching orange.

I was extremely humbled when the other intern, who was doing a feature piece on another player, asked me to edit his first draft. The whole time I was just thinking, 'I am not worthy.'

This experience changed my writing style a bit, including giving me the desire to use more colorful words more often.

Also, as a side note, I'm starting to really 'move in' to the cubicle I always use at work. That's a fun thing.

Introduction to #Boomerica: 108

Dress for success

I haven't written about my internship in a while, but that's OK. Seventy-hour work weeks will do that to ya.

My most recent experience that I'm excited to share is how I had the chance to make my debut as a professional mascot last week. I had already done some work in the community at events (Which, to the dismay of my boss, I like to call "Coopearances"), but this was my chance at the bigtime: Mascoting during a game.

My schedule was simple but hectic, go out 30 minutes before the game, interact with fans, make people smile, and fine them a good experience. Then, when the game starts, I have several stops to make, like the mascot race on the field at the end of the first inning, the boss toss out the sunroof of a car driving around the field, or the late-inning trip up to the luxury suites to make private visits to the highest-paying customers.

My favorite was doing the Gangnam Style dance on top of the dugout.

Aside from the unspeakable heat that comes with encapsulating yourself in a giant prairie chicken costume for four and a half hours, being a mascot is easy. Or maybe I just have the right personality for it.

Basically you get to run around acting crazy, dancing, and taking pictures with kids. I loved every second of it.

Of course, this isn't what I want to do with the rest of my life (although if money was no object I totally could), but I'm chalking it up as more great experiences and a chance to impress those above me with my willingness to do literally anything.

So that was a weekend of my life, including a day spent as glow stick salesperson walking up and down the stadium aisles. Again, not what I thought I'd be doing, but so unbelievably fun.

It was after a long and exhausting weekend of mascoting and glow stick selling that I realized no matter what I'm doing in life, I want to make people smile and have fun while I do it. That goes for writing, journalism, and my place else this crazy life may take me.

This world has tried vey hard, but it hasn't beaten the eternal optimist out of me yet. And if that doesn't happen this summer, I think it's a safe bet to say that I'll be this positive forever.

Introduction to #Boomerica: 107

Every Second Counts

My college class schedule for this fall is crazy because I don't have a single regular class time. Each one is at 4:30 p.m. or later, with the exception of a 7:50 a.m. time slot.

Lucky me.

My first frightening thought when I looked over this scary schedule was the realization that I would need to learn how to be productive before the p.m. Like most college students, I go about my classes in the day, eat dinner and relax in the evening, and save all that glorious homework for nighttime... if I ever get around to it.

So far this summer, I've been thrown into the fire with daytime (but also still nighttime) productivity, with the paradigm shift coming to its pinnacle yesterday on my rare day off.

I had things to do, people to call, blogs to write, research to... research, and errands to run. But I had gotten precious little sleep in the previous week. It would have been very easy to sleep in until noon, lie in bed and watch Gossip Girl Pretty Little Liars my very manly favorite TV show all day. But, despite my lack of energy, yesterday, and during several other days after work this summer, I brushed the tiredness away and tried my best to be productive and enjoy life outside of work.

This, like pretty much everything else I've been through this summer, has taught me a lot about life. During those tired moments, I've found myself longing for the sweet release of schoolwork, realizing now how much free time I'll have compared to working for the Boomers. So not only will I enjoy the free time I have more, but I'll make better use of all my time as well.

I'm blessed enough to have both a job (actually, all of my jobs qualify here) and a personal life that I love. As hard as it is sometimes to be away from one or the other, I think I'm learning to do a better job of balancing it this summer. And that might be the most valuable lesson I learn in this crazy class called Intro to #Boomerica.

Introduction to #Boomerica: 106

Extra Credit

When I signed on with the Boomers, I anticipated 90% of my duties would revolve around writing and social media. I was about 50% right. When I signed on with the Boomers, I thought I would be almost completely immersed in tasks that were directly related to my major and PR. When I signed on with the Boomers, I just wanted to hop on my typewriter and show everyone what I could do.

So then why am I so excited about spearheading our new lost and found policy?

Because about two weeks ago, I saw a need in our office. We had items being left in the stadium on an almost-nightly basis (that tends to happen when 4,000 people frequent one place) and we had people calling in looking for things they misplaced, but we had no real way to connect the two.

So I saw a need ad created an Excel Spreadsheet to make our system efficient and help our fans recover anything they leave at the stadium. Three days into the implementation, we already had five people matched to their item.

I felt like an eHarmony administrator.

Even though this little initiative had nothing to do with Journalism or Media Communications, it does have everything to do with being a good worker who takes... well... initiative at work. And that's another skill I want to get better at this summer.

Introduction to #Boomerica: 105

General Office Duties

Don't you just love it when you see that term? Basically it's job application speak for "anything else that pops up." I'm not complaining about this term, I think it's a good term. But it also applies to my entire summer.

Thus far (Wow, you know you're getting old when you say "thus," I'm sure I'll offset it with something immature later) I've done a little bit of everything with the Schaumburg Boomers. While the bulk of my responsibilities revolve around assisting the media relations director with his work, live tweeting games, writing game reports and press releases for the website, and running paperwork to coaches and broadcasters before the games, I have encountered many other duties (haha... there it is).

Most gamedays my schedule is pretty set. Get to work, start assembling the daily program insert with stats, standings, and rosters. Then it's on to the stat packs, 30+ pages of everything you could want to know about the Boomers, their opponent, and the rest of the Frontier League. Next, let's make sure I have the most up-to-date Boomers roster as well as that day's foe. Then, hopefully, the broadcasters have their daily reports done, and that the coaches have their starting lineups ready. After distributing these materials to the proper people, then it's on to game prep in the pressbox, including cleaning it and making sure the food is there and ready for a hungry staff to eat. During games, I live tweet and take notes, getting ready to write the story.

But non-gamedays are different stories. I don't have those set duties and schedule, so sometimes my day is a mix of different tasks. Like the other day, when I took a bride-to-be and her parents around the park and showed her how she could get married at Boomers Stadium. And then I tidied up the website and made sure the promotions page looked good, as well as answering phone like everyone does. Sometimes I've cleaned bathrooms, tested inflatables, rolled t-shirts, and a bevy of other tasks.

My favorite was probably working on the team's media guide, which is allllllllmost done, as it gave me a chance to work with my secret love, InDesign.

And that's just a taste of what I do on a daily basis.

Introduction to #Boomerica: 104

Going down a peg.

I'll be completely transparent, there have been times in the last couple years as a writer where I've been overconfident in my abilities. Call the been-there-done-that syndrome, but occasionally I've felt like I've reached a certain level of competence as a writer, and foolishly allowed myself to hit the cruise control.

As a senior in high school, I was in an English class with a teacher who liked me, a curriculum geared toward the students in the class who weren't going to college, and a couple years of experience writing. This was the perfect storm of apathy. I cruised like Florida Georgia Line in that class, half-hearting far too many papers because I knew I would get an A with even the slightest amount of effort.

After an experience like that, this summer's internship has been quite a nice wakeup call.

They say the first step is admitting you have a problem, so here goes: I knew/know nothing about how to write for a professional baseball team. I was used to writing both and all sides of a story, using short, thought-provoking sentences that tell a story.

Now, I'm learning how to write long sentences with lots of exciting adjectives and verbs in it, using capitalization as liberally as a Kennedy, all with the intent of getting inspiring people to buy tickets.

I wouldn't say I have a favorite style of writing between the two. Truthfully, I'm hoping to combine the two for my own style and implement it no matter where I go. This way, I can truthfully, artistically, and aesthetically tell stories.

If this summer accomplishes nothing else, it will be a humbling learning experience, reminding me that to be good at anything (including something I've been paid to do for 5 years), you have to put in 100%.

Always.

No matter what.

In everything you do.

"The greats weren't great because at birth they could paint. The greats were great because they paint a lot." -Macklemore

Introduction to #Boomerica: 103

Remixing Relationships...

I chuckled at the start of my first workplace meeting with the Boomers. As someone who has mostly worked for Christian organizations in the last four years, I'm simply used to meetings starting with prayer. I was laughing because this meeting began almost awkwardly with the person in charge basically saying hi.

Now, there's absolutely nothing wrong with this, it's completely normal, and I'm perfectly fine with meetings starting either way. It simply made me chuckle because that's been one of the only differences I've found between the two kinds of workplace environments.

And that's a good thing.

Isn't it? It seems like so often, the "secular world" is solely out to get Christians in every aspect of everyday life. But what I've encountered so far is more of a live-and-let-live mentality. No one really cares where you come from or what you believe when you're in the office. As long as you do good work and are a nice person (it would be hard to overstate the importance of that second bullet point) everyone is equal.

That's quite refreshing.

At the same time, I do feel like I'm standing out from the crowd as a person. That's not meant in an egotistical way, merely in the sense that I'm known as the perpetually happy guy at work. And isn't that how it should be as well?

Without sounding overly preachy (dear gosh, please don't sound overly preachy), I think Christians should be different in the workplace. Not by brow-beating people with the Bible or acting offended when someone shares a worldview that differs from your own, but by simply displaying the joy and the peace that comes with our faith. That's how people will notice there's something different about us, and that's how they'll want to know what it is.

Okay, Sunday School is over. Now is when we'd rewind the Veggie Tales VHS or take down the felt storyboard. I realize this has little to do with baseball, journalism, or my internship, but as a perpetual student of life and interpersonal relationships, it's one of the biggest things I'm learning in this crazy class called Introduction to #Boomerica.

Introduction to #Boomerica: 102

Stylistically Speaking...

That's been the toughest transition for me so far this summer. The style minor league baseball teams write in is completely different than the style I've been taught, learned, and tried to hone since I was 15 years old. I've written things so publication on our website that I would have scolded writers for had they done it for an article at my university's newspaper.

So here I am, one of the more conversational newspaper writers you'll find, but even that is too stiff for the constant excitement and upbeat nature of PR sports writing.

Over the last week or so, I've been able to change my writing style (or at the very least what comes out on paper) to match more of what my supervisor is looking for. In the process, I've written things that fly in my current field, but made me literally cringe because of my background. One of my favorite examples and possibly my proudest moment so far is a recap of a game we played on Disney Theme Night, where I snuck in a dozen references to Disney movies in just 200 words.

That was fun.

Another quirk of the trade that I've been trying to pick up is the initial capitalization of words just because they're important, which has always made me think of a very specific, hilarious line in National Treasure that I couldn't find a YouTube video of. But possibly my favorite is the inexhaustible use of alliterations.

This is all very new to me, but I'm so excited to hopefully start nailing down another form of writing. I'm just glad I was able to take PR practicum last semester. I think I'm finally starting to understand what that class was all about.

Introduction to #Boomerica: 101

I learn the most by doing. And that's a good thing, because "doing" is one of the main responsibilities here at the Schaumburg Boomers. No matter where you are, what time it is, or what you THINK you have to do... you're doing something.

Whether it's writing a press release, greeting fans on the concourse, or the always-loved tarp pull, there's never a dull moment at Boomers Stadium. A lot of my work so far has been simply learning as I go, figuring out some of the intricacies on a daily basis. I realize my descriptions of my duties so far has been vague at best, so here's a basic rundown of what a regular days looks like.

That is, if there were such a thing as a regular day.

Website management: Everything about boomersbaseball.com is about selling tickets. If someone happens to stumble upon our humble domain, they need to be wowed and presented the opportunity to purchase seats within 60 seconds of seeing our beautiful orange text. One of my biggest (or at least most time-consumiing) tasks has been making sure everything on the website looks pretty, is up to date, and directs people where they need to go. Whether that's changing the roster when the team signs a new player, updating the information, pictures, and links on our daily promotions page, or taking down outdated ads and stories, I do my best to make boomersbaseball.com the most attractive and profitable website in the Frontier League.

Pre-game information: This part is fun. I track down all of the stats in the league for the coaches, radio broadcasters, and media every day we have games. I bogart the priner most of the day, as I run dozens of copies of everything for lots of people. Let's see if I can remember everything off the top of my head...
1) Update program insert with names/stats for new visiting team, include Frontier League Standings. 100 copies.
2) Update home roster, run 15 copies to coaches, press box.
3) Update away roster, run 15 copies to coaches, press box.
4) Assemble stat pack. These are usually 30-page booklets of all the information about the Frontier League stats that change on a daily basis. Tedious, takes forever, but must be done. Printing a dozen of these massive books shuts down the printer for a good 10 minutes, almost always to the dismay of the full-time staffer whose office is across from mine.
5) Acquire home game notes from broadcaster, print, distribute to press box.
6) Acquire away game notes from broadcaster, print, distribute to press box.
7) Somehow pry the starting lineups from the clubhouses, type up, distribute to pretty much everyone in the stadium.
8) Somewhere in there, post something on Facebook and Twitter that reminds people there's a game tonight and entices them to come out.

During the game: Watch. Keep detailed notes. Update social media. Start writing game report. Boomer Dance.

Post-game: Write game report. Find photo to go with it. Run box scores to press box, coaches.

General duties: Dress up as mascot, clean, answer phones, pull tarp, etc.

Daily: Write press releases about events and player signings, plan a special event, etc.

As you can tell, my detail and enthusiasm toward writing this is dwindling as I go on. So I'll just leave it at this.

Needless to say, it's not hard to fill up these 70-hour weeks with a lot of work, and of course, a lot of learning.

Introduction to #Boomerica

I truly had no idea what I was getting into.

It would be easy to say that my first month-and-a-half as a media relations intern at a independent league baseball team has been difficult at times. It would be harder to admit that I wasn't expecting it.

After more than five years in journalism, sometimes I get caught in a cycle of repetition. It would be a miracle if I didn't deveop some tendencies following more than 250 combined articles at two different newspapers. Rightly or wrongly, I have a certain way of doning things, a defined style in progress, and a fair amount of confidence in my abilities.

This summer is going to change all of that.

Minor league baseball teams have a very different style than newspapers (who knew?) and the hours of this job... oh, the hours.

Now, all of this isn't to say that I don't like my job. On the contrary, my job rocks. However, this summer has been, and will be a tough test of many skills. Not only will I need to improve my writing speed, and hone my PR writing style, but I'll need to do it on not a whole lot of sleep.

Bring it on, summer. Bring it on.

This is going to be a great experience. It's going to be hard at times, but I'll learn a lot, and be more prepared for "real life" because of it.

And I think that's exactly what an internship should be.

Athletics and the Almighty

Ray Lewis hoisted the Vince Lombardi Trophy. The Baltimore Ravens had just won one of the more exciting (or at least interesting) Super Bowls in recent memory. Even more memorable than the win was the quest of the Ravens' future hall of fame linebacker who vowed this season would be his last.

All other storylines aside, it was the words Lewis said as he lifted his hard-fought prize that captured my attention most of all.

"It's simple: When God is for ya, who can be against ya?"

At surface level, this may sound like an awe-inspiring motivational saying. One, of course, derived from the Bible verse Romans 8:31. And you know what? It might be just that. But when you think about the deeper meaning of what Lewis might be implying with that concept, it gets a little tricky. (AP Photo)

Does this statement, undoubtedly uttered by many a winner, mean that God is more "with" one team than another? Does it imply the Ravens had a holier team, or that they sent up more prayers heavenward asking for a victory?

Does God even care about sports?

No matter how you slice it, faith and football mix about as well as oil and water. Not in the sense that they shouldn't have anything to do with one another. I think most would agree Tim Tebow has done it as well as anyone with as much class as humanly possible. But right now, how would you explain the 49ers' loss to the players on the team who truly thought God was on their side?

This question is obviously not as impactful as countless others that could be asked, but as an unashamed follower of Jesus and sports, it's one I know I will have to wrestle with for many years.

I'm the farthest thing from a preacher, but the first thing I think of when considering this is that if we think God is with the winning team more than the losing team, we've dichotomized the concept of winning and losing to where God can only be present in the victory. And according to what I believe, that's the furthest thing from the truth.

It's not like God helped Ray Lewis and the Ravens run faster or hit harder. And he didn't blind the referees to a Baltimore holding penalty in the endzone on San Francisco's final drive. As I said last year in a column about Tebow, the concept of God in sports isn't about whether He helps a team win by lining up on defense for the two-minute drill. It's something deeper. It's about motivation. Just like some athletes play the game for money, family, or fame, athletes like Tebow do it because they believe they're doing it for a higher calling.

Whether or not that's what Lewis was referring to, I guess I'll never know.

But I do know there is a way for sports and salvation to coexist. It's not as simple as 'believe and you will succeed,' or as clear-cut as 'God doesn't stick his nose in the stadiums,' but the balance is out there. I think it's somewhere between the two extremes. And, like always, I think it's not always about winning. But that's what's cool about faith. You don't have to have all the answers.

So much for something different

Sigh.

What can anyone say to possibly sum up what all Bengals fans are feeling right now?

Nothing.

Cincinnati lost to the Houston Texans to make the Bengals' trip to the playoffs about as long as a Brittney Spears marriage. Again. The play calling was awful, Andy Dalton almost made me miss Carson Palmer and the highly touted defensive line never got near Matt Schaub.

It even had the hallmark of a classic Bengals loss: Fans were given legitimate hope at the very end.

And then, with one overthrown TD pass, it was all taken away.

Cue the fire and brimstone. Cue the calls for the heads of Dalton, Marvin Lewis, Jay Gruden and everyone else who may have contributed to a loss that ended Cincinnati's season the same way it did last year. And in 2009. And in 2005.

In some respects, these calls are justified. Going by Einstein's definition of insanity, change must be made. But maybe in a few weeks cooler heads will prevail and Cincinnati's esteemed owner Mike Brown will bring back the entire cast of characters who raised the Bengals to the highest level of play they've been in years.

But what if that's not enough?

What if this cast of characters has hit its ceiling?

We've seen what this crew can do. And to be honest, it's not much better than what we saw from the Dick LeBeau/Gus Frerotte-esque combinations of the '90s and '00s.

I'm not going to pretend I know what the real answer is. Whether it's getting rid of Gruden, Lewis, Dalton or some combination of the three. But I do know another slightly above average season will no longer cut it in Cincinnati.

The bar has been raised. More is expected out of the Bengals than before. Unfortunately for Cincinnati fans, we have an entire offseason to think about exactly what those expectations are.

The Hope of a City

It’s been a rough couple decades to be a Cincinnati sports fan.

Ever since the Reds won the World Series in 1990, championship banners haven’t exactly been a main export of the Queen City. Cincy fans have been subjected to some very bad professional sports teams and even more painfully mediocre ones. These teams have put fans through year after hopeful year of disappointing torment.

And we sat through every game.

All 214 Bengals losses from 1991 through 2011, and each of the Reds’ 1,704 defeats in that span.

Even worse, Cincinnati’s only two professional franchises (I shudder to think what we’d do with an NBA team) managed to win a total of three playoff games in those 42 combined seasons. And all of those victories were in one divisional series the Reds played in ’95. The Bengals assembled three trips of their own to the postseason, all after 2000; all resulted in convincing losses.

We’ve endured all of it.

Sure, we said we were done countless times. I can’t even tell you how often I swore off my allegiance to Cincinnati sports after an inexplicably bad defensive effort by the Bengals or a three-homerun losing effort by the Reds. But just like everyone else, the next day I took the paper bag off my head and somehow truly believed the next game, the next week; the next season would be different.

But year after year, we were met with the same results. The 7-9s; the 78-84s. And those were the good years. Those were the years when we were at least teased and taunted with that dangerous hope of changing winds. Other years, the dark ones, were the 3-13 or 66-93 efforts. The years when we heard of owners who cared more about money than winning and locker room atmospheres that can only be described as poisonous.

Cincinnati’s athletic woes didn’t even end at the professional level. The University of Cincinnati’s hoops team is better remembered for a brawl than its recent basketball success. And the Bearcat’s football team is going through its third painful breakup in less than a decade with a third coach who saw the program as a stepping stone instead of a legitimate contender.

Hope was the only thing that got us through these teams and those times. Hope made us keep watching. Hope told us better days were ahead.

Days, maybe, like this Saturday.

The Cincinnati Bengals are in the postseason for the third time in four years, marking the first back-to-back playoff seasons this franchise has seen in three decades. This year hasn’t always been pretty, but it was highlighted by a 13-10 late-season victory at rival Pittsburgh that knocked the Steelers out of the playoffs and clinched a Bengals berth. Even an ugly win like that is sweeter than anything Cincinnati fans have tasted in a long time.

But now it’s time to take that all-important next step. The reach from mediocre to something more, whatever that is. Sure, it’s nice to move past the .500 seasons of old, but how much difference does it really make if all the farther we get to see is a couple regular season wins and a painful playoff loss?

If that’s the only thing I have to look forward to this week, I’d almost rather not even bother.

Cincinnati fans are tough. We’ve made it through the abyss of athletics with precious little to show for it. But we still have the teams. Unlike the fans from some other professional sports settings, we’ve kept our teams when they were better for a punch line than a sports venue. The Bengals are no exception. Once the laughingstock of the league with more arrests and failed draft picks on a yearly basis than wins, the orange and black have a chance to change the direction of a sports town that’s been going south far too long.

While the first Bengals playoff victory in my lifetime wouldn’t erase the past by a long shot, it would go a long way to starting a new chapter in Cincinnati sports history. I don’t know how many postseason wins it will take for the Reds, Bengals and Bearcats to make the last 20 years of frustration worth it, but I do know it has to start this Saturday versus the Texans.