I don’t watch the Missouri game.  Haven’t since 1999.  Well, that’s not true.  In 2004, I was pretty sure we would clown them, so I watched part of both halves.  And in 2005, when I checked the score at halftime and we were up big, I watched most of the second half just for the schadenfreude (and popcorn).

But other than that, I skip it.  Why? Because I grew up in the Great State of Illinois, but only 29 miles from the Gateway Arch.  All of the TV sportscasters I watched were all Mizzou all the time.  I would tune in hoping for some Illinois highlights, only to have Derrick Chievous shoved down my throat.  Even some people I went to high school with bought in, despite my “you. live. in. Illinois.” pleas.  Everywhere I turned, the University of Missouri was in my face.

Thankfully, we would always beat them.  My parents went to the 1983 Braggin’ Rights game (and brought me home my first ever Illini souvenir – a small orange plastic megaphone with “Fighting Illini vs. Tigers” printed on the side).  After that, I watched every year (usually on independent Channel 11 in St. Louis – with Mizzou-ish announcers, of course.)

And we kept winning.  They’re #10?  Meh – we beat ‘em.  They reached their highest ranking ever at #4? Meh – beat ‘em then, too.  We kept winning and winning and winning.  And then I graduated from high school and moved into Forbes Hall.

If you read this blog back in August, you know what happens next.  Instead of linking, I’ll quote myself:

I have attended 5 Braggin’ Rights basketball games, 2 Arch Rivalry football games, and 2 missouri-Illinois games at Faurot Field.  Our record in those 9 games? 0-9.  Zero wins and 9 losses.  No wins.  None.  9 times I’ve walked out of athletic contests versus the University of missouri away from Champaign, and 9 times I’ve had to deal with drunken imbeciles screaming about Norm Stewart, Brock Olivo, and “gold is so much a better color than orange.”

The basketball thing is simply an anomaly.  I attended 4 straight losses in the early 90’s (including the gut-punch Garris Free Throw 3OT loss in 1993), so I stopped going.  I decided to give it another try in 1999, watched a 15 point lead waste away, and gave it up for good.  Purely coincidentally, something else hasn’t happened since 1999.  We haven’t lost.

Football is another story.  I attended the Ken Dilger Dropped The Winning Touchdown Pass game in 1991, the Scott Weaver Doesn’t Look Like He Knows What He’s Doing Out There game in 1993, the Who Is This Brad Smith Guy game in 2002, and the Why Couldn’t Melvin Bryant Have Caught That game in 2003.  All four losses, two by a failed final drive, and two by “what just happened out there?”

(One note about the 1993 game.  I attended the game with a missouri “friend” and sat in the mizzou student section.  And I wore an orange shirt (back before wearing orange was wearing orange).  And before the game, I told anyone that would listen that, and I quote, “Scott Weaver is the next great western Pennsylvania quarterback.” Those exact words.  I really said that.)

So after 1999, I stopped watching the basketball game. It mattered too much. Losing ruined my Christmas. You think I’m kidding. Ask my mom sometime about Christmases after we’d lose – she’s trying to ask me if I had met any “nice girls” at school and I’m staring at the table and smashing my mashed potatoes with my fork.

In 2000, I went Christmas shopping and checked the score when I got home.  Win.  In 2001, I was sick and read a book.  Win.  It was great.  All the joy of winning, none of the angst and dread.

It felt so good that I decided to attend the 2002 football game.  That didn’t work out too well, so I decided to avoid the basketball game again. Win.  Same deal in 2003 (football loss, basketball win).  After that, I was done.  Walking out of the dome in 2003 after losing to Missouri was it for me.  No more, ever.  I can’t take any more of these yellowish gold idiots.  I decided I would watch the football game on TV (I mean, I couldn’t ever not watch the first Illini football game), but I would never watch the basketball game again. And you know what?  It’s been great.  I know it makes me a bad fan.  But for one day per year, I get to be my sister.

My sister grew up just down the hall from me (no, really).  She went to the same high school.  She had the same father that bet a case of fruit on the 1984 Rose Bowl with a UCLA friend from grad school (he had to send him a box of apples from a local orchard, if I recall correctly). But Illini sports has never even clicked on my sister’s radar.  She still lives in the area, but I guarantee she had no idea the game was going on last night.  She was finishing the cookies and wrapping the presents and removing the glue from my 4 year-old nephew’s hair.  A basketball game was going on 15 miles from her house, and she was blissfully ignorant of it. I’m jealous of that sometimes (say, maybe, September 6th, 2009.  We’re barbecuing that day – she’s laughing and chasing her kids, I’m smashing my baked potato with a fork.)  This football season left me questioning my obsessive fandom once again – “is it all worth it?” and crap like that.  She’s never had to deal with that in her life.

So last night, for the 10th consecutive year, I attempted to be her.  Braggin’ Rights game going on somewhere in the world, and I’m doing Christmas busy work.  Don’t get me wrong – I was still nervous.  I barely ate yesterday.  My heart rate rose to 145 or so at 8:30 and didn’t drop for the next few hours. Getting the final score update on my phone was an absolute gut punch.  Of all teams, I hate losing to Missouri the most.

But I think my little experiment has worked.  It started out as “I don’t think I can handle watching the Missouri game”, but has morphed into the one day a year I don’t obsess about Illini sports.  A day of atonement, if you will.  A day to inventory the past year, looking at all of the Illini highs and lows.  To see how my sister lives, oblivious to the clock management in the final drive of the Northwestern game.  A quick life check, then Christmas with my family, and then right back to “dear God, if we lose to Northwestern at home…”

My sons thought it weird that their Illini-obsessed, blog-writing father wasn’t watching the Big Game.  I explained it to them, and I think they understood.  They know I truly live for Illini sports, 24/7/364.