Passing the Torch (or Curse)

Conversation overheard the other morning at the Clock Restaurant while I was eating breakfast:

Customer: Go Gators!
Waitress: Go Gators! (sigh) Doggone it!

I have a slightly different take on Florida's convincing 32-13 drubbing at the hands of now "perfect" Alabama for the SEC football championship. The situation reminds me of a Twilight Zone episode titled A Game of Pool. In it, a pool fanatic played by Jack Klugman is a general loser at life, except for pool: he practices and plays it day and night. And only wants one thing in life: to be the best pool player ever. The only problem is that the man who was the recognized best, played by Jonathan Winters, had just died, depriving Klugman of his opportunity to dethrone the champ. So this talented man was turning into a very bitter man over this. Then one day, what should happen but the ghost of Winters shows up and challenges Klugman to a match. The stakes: if Klugman wins, then he is recognized as the greatest ever. But if he loses, then he forfeits his life. In the end, Klugman "wins", but as a result is cursed with the responsibility, after his eventual death later on, of replacing Winters in heaven with the job of defending his "title" against future wannabes on Earth.

I feel kind of like that about following a team that, like Florida recently, has come to be expected to be perfect and better than everyone else. This year they haven't been annihilating their opponents with the extremely lopsided scores that their fans have been used to. And quarterback Tim Tebow has also been much more closely scrutinized regarding his performance than ever before. But they kept on winning, until last Saturday that is. Once the shock of their defeat has settled in, they can now go back to just being a very good and entertaining team. And the curse of perfection has been successfully transferred to the University of Alabama. Good luck, guys! Now Gators, just go out and have some fun in the Sugar Bowl against Cincinnati!