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.

Adios Ocho

November 9th, 2003. The Cincinnati Bengals were nothing more than the Bungles, a horrible team with no upside, no excitement, and no hope. But they had just beaten the Houston Texans to pull to a respectable 4-5 record, one of their best marks halfway through the season. Things were quietly going pretty well for the worst pro football since 1991, maybe there was hope after all.

Then Chad Johnson spoke up.

The Kansas City Chiefs were the best team in football in 2003. By far. While they may not have had a defense that could compete with the '85 Bears, the Chiefs offense was untouchable. Trent Green was slinging, Priest Holmes was scoring, and Dante Hall was doing a little bit of everything in the return game as the league's Devin Hester before there was a Devin Hester. Kansas City was unchallenged, unbeaten, untouchable. And that was exactly why Chad Johnson guaranteed the Bengals would defeat them.

This cocky third year wide receiver from Oregon State was as flashy as he was fast, as arrogant as he was athletic; as gaudy as he was good. But dang, was he good.

It wasn't really new for him to promise a Bengal's victory (he had done so twice the season before). But a young player on an annually bad team guaranteeing a win over the 9-0 Chiefs? That took guts. Or stupidity. I guess we'll never know which.

You remember what happened. The Bengals beat the Texans, Chad made the prediction immediately following the game, a crazy week of speculation followed, and when the two polar opposite teams took the field in Paul Brown Stadium that Sunday, Peter Warrick made like Dante Hall and took a punt back 68 yards for a touchdown. Bengals win 24-19.

You can say what you want about the person Chad was before that game. Yeah, he was loud and talked a lot prior to his Joe Namath-esque guarantee. But he was never the same undersized receiver after that day. The Bengals finished that year 8-8, missing the playoffs but proving that they were a legitimate team for the first time in my life.

Chad Johnson was one of the biggest factors in the new age of the Bengals where they don't suck... as much. If you made a Mount Rushmore honoring those brave souls, his face would be the first on it, along with Jon Kitna, Marvin Lewis, Carson Palmer, and Rudi Johnson.

While I firmly believe that specific guarantee was a pivotal point in the history of the Bengals, it was far from the last thing Chad did to entertain this city and put it on the map.

He talked.

He joked.

He celebrated.

He putted.

He proposed.

He Pepto bismoled.

He Fiesta'd.

He changed his name to Ochocinco.

He resuscitated.

He Riverdanced.

He Lambeau-leaped (even in Cleveland).

He played camera man.

He played Santa.

He played soccer.

He raced a horse.

He raced a car.

He kicked an extra point.

He inducted himself into the Hall of Fame.

And all he wanted was to not get fined.

Cincinnati is the legitimate football town it is because of Chad, and that will never change. There are many hard feelings towards the man who just wanted to have fun and win, and some are valid. But you cannot discredit the amazing things he did for this team and this city. As Chad Ochocinco heads off to suit up for the New England Patriots in this post-lockout, apocalyptic world, we should be thankful for his contributions to the Bengals and wish him the best. I guarantee he will fare well in his new home.

Thanks for the memories Chad "Ochocinco" Johnson, we'll never forget you.

My Choice

There is so much I could be writing about right now. There is so much I should be writing about right now. The NFL lockout is all but over. The most chaotic 72 hours of free agency is about to begin. The Reds are starting to look like a competitor again (for now). Oh yeah, and Brett Favre (an evergreen topic if I've ever seen one).

But I don't feel like doing any of that.

What can you do when you just don't feel like writing? Especially when writing is your job? For so long, writing was the main thing in my life that mattered. That was back in the homeschooling days of 24/7 sports. Back when I could rattle off the names of every quarterback on every NFL roster. Back when I was doing radio interviews because of my insane amount of NFL Draft preparation. Back when I had my own mathematical system to help calculate my weekly power rankings.

That was so long ago, and so much has changed in my life since then. Especially my priorities. Back then I would have dropped everything to be on top of a story like this historic lockout. But right now my mind is elsewhere. It's not that I don't have that same passion for sports and journalism that I always have, but I'm realizing that there are things in life that are much more important than my career.

For a long time, I thought that I wouldn't be happy unless I ended up as a nationally-renowned sports writer, and that is partially true. But there are other things I want to have; other things I want to be that need to take precedence over that dream. I'll still try to be the hardest worker and best writer no matter where I'm at. But I won't let my laptop consume me any longer.

Who knows? Maybe this means settling for a job that isn't as glamorous as what I hope for. Maybe this field requires me to be a shameless workaholic. And I've already proven I'm willing to sacrifice for my goal. I've written for free. I've worked myself sleepless. I've taken stepping stool jobs. I've done some dirty work. I'm paying my dues. However, I'm not willing to give up what matters most just for a bigger byline.

...and the agony of defeat

It was 11 o'clock at night and I had nothing else to do. So I flipped on ESPN. To my delight, game two of the College World Series Finals was on, and drawing to a finish. College baseball. Only slightly more intriguing to me than the WNBA, but seeing that college baseball's champion was potentially just six outs away from being crowned, I decided to stick around.

I've always loved watching the ending of major sports championships. Actually, it doesn't even have to be a major sport. Just as long as it's the final game of sport's postseason, you can find me glued to the TV. Just the other day, I watched the XFL's Super Bowl, titled the Million Dollar Game, from its first and only season back in 2001.

Of course, it's no surprise that I would love watching these types of games. They're what every athlete in his or her respective sport plays for. What might be surprising though is my favorite part of those games. To me, the most interesting part about championships isn't the dogpile that ensues after the final out, point, or when the clock hits triple zeroes. It's not the passing out of t-shirts and caps, and the spraying of champagne in the locker room. It's not even the cliche one-word headlines with oversized photos in the next day's newspaper (although I really do love those).

My favorite part is the loser.

Sadistic much? Maybe a little. There's just something about watching the team that finished second. The blank stares. The towels over heads. The tears. Nobody remembers second place, so those tears are the last we will ever see of you. My first memory of this was Kevin Dyson kneeling on the one yard line in Super Bowl XXXIV. One yard short. Ever since then I have always been willing to trade the images of celebratory mobs on the pitcher's mound or the fifty yard line for those of a heartbroken veteran who watches that final play on the jumbotron, hoping for a different ending.

Nobody remembers second place. Except of course, for the ones who were unfortunate enough to finish there. For them, it's a gut-wrenching experience that is impossible to forget. For me, it's the images of their downfall; the look of sheer defeat on their faces, that I can't- and don't want to-block from my memory.