The Football Fan’s Guide to Inner Peace

“If your biggest worry is a football game, that’s a pretty good indication that there’s not much left in your life to bitch about.”


I’ve had anxiety my entire life, or at least as long as I can remember. I used to get random stomachaches as a grade school kid that my parents and doctor had no explanation for. It’s only now, at age 40, that I am able to look back and see that it was anxiety. This eventually lead to overeating, smoking, alcohol and drug abuse. The root cause of this anxiety is something that I’m still trying to piece together, but throughout the years the one constant source of heightened stress that I can easily point the finger at is sports--and more specifically…FOOTBALL.

Just so we’re clear on this, it has nothing to do with me actually playing sports, oh no. It has much more to do with my mindless dedication as a red blooded, true blue, all American sports fan—and the agony of defeat that goes with it. It may have all started on October 17th 1979 when, as a bright eyed nine year old, my beloved Baltimore Orioles took a 3 games to 1 lead over the “We Are Family” Pittsburgh Pirates, only to blow it in 7 games and break my little prepubescent heart in the process. The devastation was compounded on March 29th 1984, when team owner, and raving lunatic, Robert Irsay packed up my Baltimore Colts in the middle of one snowy night, and, with his tail between his cowardly legs, moved them out to Indianapolis. Some kids are scared of clowns. I grew up scared of Mayflower trucks and Sister Sledge.


Luckily for me, and the rest of Baltimore, a knight in shining armor arrived just in time—Cal Ripken Jr. He won rookie of the year in 1982, and then was awarded the American League’s Most Valuable Player award while leading the Orioles to a World Championship in 1983. It seemed that brighter days were ahead, and even without a football team, Baltimore was undaunted. We knew the World Series rings would start piling up, and that we could look forward to a decade or two of dominance in major league baseball—or at least that’s what we thought. 20 years later Cal would retire as baseball’s Iron Man and a hero to any local kid that grew up during his career—but as for more rings? No joy in Mudville.









Then in the late 90s, at roughly the same time the Orioles suffered two painful playoff defeats at the hands of the Indians and the Yankees--a miracle happened! Football was returning to Baltimore, and the Ravens (formerly the Cleveland Browns) were on their way! Now, one might wonder how we could rejoice so fervently when Cleveland’s team was being taken from them and it had just happened to us a few years earlier. I think I can safely speak for all Baltimore fans in saying that we felt for them, but we also felt confident that a team would return to Cleveland, and that the long and storied history of the Browns would be restored to it’s original state. Whether that’s a good thing or a bad thing I’ll leave up to Cleveland fans to decide.


Then a bigger miracle happened: In the year 2000, in only their fourth year of existence, the Baltimore Ravens won the Super Bowl! For the first time in 17 years the city had a world champion, and once again the streets were filled with pride for a championship parade. Surely this would mark the beginning of a new era of Baltimore dominance in major sports, making cities like New York, Boston, and Pittsburgh green with envy over Charm City’s mighty regime. Uh…not so fast Hon. The only thing it’s marked the beginning of is a new level of anxiety for me, one that I never knew existed. It’s made me take a deep, hard look at myself--but in the process, I’ve uncovered some amazing answers to some very tough questions. The two most notable being “why the f*** do I do this to myself every season!?” and “where the f*** does it end!?” The answers may surprise you. J


First, let me add that I am by no means an ungrateful Baltimore fan. To the contrary, I realize how lucky I am to have experienced 3 major championships in my lifetime when there are plenty of fans in America who have never experienced their team winning it all. (What was the third championship, you ask? The Baltimore Colts defeated the Dallas Cowboys 16-13 to win Super Bowl V when I was 7 months old. I’ll never forget it.) My heart goes out to Chicago Cubs fans, Buffalo Bills fans, Detroit Lions fans, and even Cleveland Browns fans. I can’t even begin to imagine what this must be like. I can only surmise that a little piece of you dies every year when it becomes obvious (halfway through the season) that yet another year will go by without a world championship. But maybe, just maybe, you don’t have it so bad. Let me explain:


What causes sports anxiety? Is it losing? Nope, can’t be. How do I know this?
Because if losing were the main cause of sports anxiety, every last Oriole fan, myself included, would have dropped dead over the last 10 years of a massive coronary. So what is the cause? In a word: expectations. The more we expect our team to win and the more they don’t, the higher our levels of damaging stress and anxiety. To prove this, I did a clinical study on 100 of my closest Redskin fan friends. I concluded that if Daniel Snyder doesn’t do something quickly, then his health, and the health and of the entire Redskin nation is in jeopardy--albeit for two different reasons.


For me, writing this blog comes on the heels of a gut wrenching defeat of the Ravens by our most hated rival, the Pittsburgh Steelers. In fact, this blog was inspired by this defeat. We watched with joy as our Ravens took a commanding 21-7 halftime lead, only to acquiesce to the Steelers (a polite way of saying “sh*t the bed”) in the second half and lose the game 31-24. To make matters worse, it’s the second time in three years the Ravens have been eliminated from the playoffs by the Steelers--while a year ago we were eliminated by the (almost-as-hated) Indianapolis Colts. I compare the last three football seasons to getting repeatedly run over by a Mayflower truck while being forced to listen to Sister Sledge on my Ipod.


Again, most teams would be happy just to make the playoffs so I really can’t complain, but this drives home the fact that “expectations” are the main cause of sports anxiety. In other words, if you don’t get your hopes up, they can’t be dashed on the rocks of despair. There’s the rub. What makes being a sports fan so much fun is putting yourself out there, talking trash, and making your team an extension of everything that you are. You buy the bumper stickers, you buy the tickets, you wear the jersey. They represent you, they embody you—they ARE YOU!! This is a wonderful thing, because these are highly skilled professional athletes who are in top physical condition—while you recently threw out your back bringing in the groceries.


For those of you, like me, who refuse to give up the hope of a championship season, I’ve come up with a guide to help ease some of the tension and anxiety when your team decides to betray you—and trust me, they will. I’ve combined some Western thought with some traditional Eastern philosophies (like the Tao te Ching, Bhagavad Gita and Zen Buddhism) to give you what I call “Wide Right Zen.” “Wide Right” is a tribute to kicker Scott Norwood and his heartbreaking missed field goal that cost the Buffalo Bills a Super Bowl victory. I can’t think of a bigger example of expectations causing sports anxiety (unless of course you consider the Bills lost the next three Super Bowls in a row. Yikes!) Through many years of healing, prayer, and unconditional love, the Bills fans actually learned to forgive Scott Norwood—though they still playfully refer to him as “Nott Scorwood.”



If you’re watching playoff football this weekend, and more importantly, if your favorite team is still in it, you will find this guide very helpful when the game is about to begin:







1) Find a comfortable spot on the floor where you can sit indian style or in the lotus position, as in yoga. With the back of your hands on your knees,
and your palms up, touch your thumb to your middle finger.
(Now, if you are a typical football fan and not very flexible, you may modify this position: simply sit up on the couch and dust the Cheeto crumbs off of your chest.)

2) Close your eyes and inhale deeply.
Conscious breathing is an ancient art form, and revered by those in the Far East. Unlike American football fans who typically view “inhaling” as something you do with Buffalo wings or a pipe made out of a Budweiser can.

3) Exhale and repeat after me: “It’s only a game, it does not define who I am.”
It is very important to keep this in mind as you sit there with your jersey and team colors on, in the TV room painted the same colors, with a tattoo of their logo on your left ass cheek.

4) Enter a state of great relaxation.
If the game is just starting you may have to turn down Dan Dierdorf, whose voice is about as relaxing as the sound of a water buffalo getting boofed.


5) Now, enter a state where pro football has no meaning.
No, not Arkansas. Idiot.

6) See yourself as anxiety free, let all your troubles and worries drift away.
Forget about that $100 bet you made at work with that a**hole in accounting.


7) As kickoff approaches, realize that the outcome of this game has no tangible meaning to you.
At least not if your team covers the spread.


8) Gently open your eyes, and acknowledge how foolish it is—it’s just a game.
Forget about your face paint and the hat your wearing that holds two beer cans.


9) When the game is over, and your team has lost, bless the other team for their hard work and sacrifice, as well as being victorious. This will defuse your anger.
Make sure that your blessing does not include the word “suck” or any other word with a “ck” in it. And finally…


10) Cultivate a deep feeling of gratitude for everything else that life has to offer:
The warmth of the Sun, the gentle Earth, the laughter of a child, the birds and the bees. Would the birds and the bees ever let you down? Never. (Or at least those little bastards wouldn’t blow a 14 point second half lead by turning the ball over 3 freaking times!)

If your favorite team sucks, be grateful. It’s all about expectations. Like I said, the Orioles haven’t caused me any stress since 1997 because I EXPECT them to suck. All Buck Showalter has to do is get them to .500 this year I will do cartwheels down Eutaw Street wearing nothing but a black and orange pickle bender. The Ravens, on the other hand, are killing me. I’ve come to expect them to be good, and therefore my stress level has increased every year since 2000. If they win it all, will that make my stress level decrease? No way. Just ask a Steelers fan, whose team has won two Super Bowls in recent memory, but can’t stop salivating at the thought of winning number 7---then 8,9,10…if they could only count that high. (Had to get at least one dig in)

Where does it end? It doesn’t. One hundred years from now, in the year 2111, Detroit Lions fans might be bragging how they have 32 Super Bowl rings, and that Cleveland Browns only have 30. Meanwhile, the football team that was in Pittsburgh moved out in the middle of the night to Arkansas and became the “Little Rock Steelers,” never getting more than 6 Super Bowl titles, and having an average attendance of 487 rabid Arkansawyers (trust me, I Googled it) who have long since turned in their terrible towels for “terrible spit cups.” Sure, this is a bit far fetched, but I can dream--can’t I!?


So heed my warning football fans: be grateful if you’re team sucks, and relax if your team is great. We’re only here for a short while, and If your biggest worry is a football game, that’s a pretty good indication that there’s not much left in your life to bitch about. At least that’s what I’ve been telling myself all week.