Only the heartbroken on my bandwagon

It's easy to grin when your ship's come in, and you've got the stock market beat, but the man worthwhile is the man who can smile when his shorts are too tight in the seat.   — Judge Smails, Caddyshack

I will never understand the concept of the bandwagon. The very notion that, in sports, when a particular team is doing well, they seem to generate more fans than when they are getting their behinds kicked is alien to me. I lived in Louisiana for about three years in the late 1990s, and it was amazing to see a sudden emergence of Green Bay Packer fans just at a time when the Packers were dominating the NFL landscape. Really? You've always been a Packer fan? I have a sneaking suspicion that most of those cheeseheads were placed in moth balls until this year.

The opposite of that are us — die hard fanatics who root for a team no matter what record they have. We have for years before, and we will for decades to come. In many instances, we root for them no matter who is suiting up for them. To paraphrase Jerry Seinfeld, we basically cheer for laundry.

My allegiances have been etched in stone since I was a baby, and I have never deviated from them. I was born in Dallas (I have the birth certificate in case Donald Trump needs some sort of proof), and I have been a lifelong Cowboy fan since as long as I could remember. With that comes a lot of tongue-biting over the course the team has taken throughout my life. There have been new owners and fired coaches and rival players you hate now wearing the immortal star. Yes, I cheered for the laundry on more than one occasion. It was hard, but I am die-hard, baby.

My family is from north Arkansas, so baseball season has always revolved around the St. Louis Cardinals. Although the championships in my lifetime have been fewer than the Cowboys, the integrity of the organization has been a little more respectable, save for one steroid-juiced first baseman a few years back.

When it comes to colleges, most people know where I stand, and this is where my hatred for the bandwagon takes full form. Those people who claim to be sports fans really aren't. Because real sports fans know about heartbreak. And that's what makes these games special for us.

I achieved another level of it Tuesday night watching my beloved Baylor Lady Bears fall in the NCAA Tournament ... to the Texas A&M Aggies. I can't believe I just typed that without throwing up on the keyboard. With the Lady Bears, I was living a dream that I haven't experienced since the Aikman-Irvin-Smith days of the Cowboys. A team that I loved was the best, at least for a good part of the season. This program had already won a national championship and had spent most of this past season as No. 1 in the nation. "We" had beaten A&M three times this season, each by the slimmest of margins, and doing it a fourth time would not be easy. It turned out to be a very easy game to win ... for the Aggies. They beat us down and are heading to the Final Four next week while we are heading home. Blah.

I wasn't shocked by the outcome. Being a Baylor fan in any sport, you are never shocked to lose, even with a team as great as this one. But I was more than disheartened. For the first time in quite a while, I actually had a quiet sense of confidence. Unlike last year when our men's team lost to Duke a game away from their Final Four, I actually thought this team had a chance to win it all. Last year, both the men and women made it further than I would have ever imagined. But this year, my heart was broken — again.

I remember that national championship game in 2005 and how wonderful the feeling was, and I have great memories of great wins by my alma mater. There was the football victory over Arkansas in 1993. The temperature was about 8 degrees, and the Bears won in Fayetteville 9-5, the last time those two teams ever played.

There was a basketball win over those same Hogs my freshman year in college. Arkansas was third in the nation, and losses by Kansas and Missouri earlier in the week meant that if the Razorbacks could just beat lowly Baylor, they could vault to No. 1 in the nation. Well, we played over our heads all day and won 82-77. It was the one time in my life that I was part of storming the court. That night, a multitude of freshmen gathered around the community televisions at Penland Hall to watch Sportscenter (yes, it existed back then). We knew we would be the top story of the day.

That night, Buster Douglas beat Mike Tyson for the heavyweight boxing title. The first 20 minutes of the broadcast were dedicated to that historical event. Even when we won, we lost.

But for some reason, I always tend to dwell on the losses. I remember so many defeats to Arkansas and A&M and Texas and Oklahoma and Missouri and Kansas and ... well, you get the picture. This latest one just adds to to the misery.

But it also makes loving a team that much more special. One goes through so much heartbreak when following a sports program that it makes the winning that much sweeter. And I have seen my share of heartbreak. That's why bandwagon fans make me sick. What's the point of celebrating with your "team" if you weren't around when they stunk? For every glorious win, I have burned-in memories of every stinging loss.

While I appreciate every Cowboy victory ...

I cannot forget every embarrassing defeat ....

For every Cardinal championship ....

We have to deal with soul-crushing injuries ...

When Baylor football qualifies for a bowl after 18 years ....

We had to finish the season with this ....

So this week was just the latest in a big, fat pile of bad memories for me. I do realize that I am just a fan in the midst of all of this. The players want to win 100 times more than I do. The coaches agonize over every botched play and missed opportunity. All I can do is watch and sigh.

But I wouldn't have it any other way. I have had enough heartbreak in my life to worry too much about sports heartbreak. It's tough, but I always get up the next morning and get going. Maybe being tied to these teams (as well as the Texas Rangers and Dallas Mavericks) have helped me in other struggles. The sun does come up the next day.

Today is Opening Day for baseball. While the Lady Bear basketball team is done for the year (and guess what Aggies. I'm rooting for Stanford!), the Cardinals are gearing up for a hopefully glorious season. They probably won't win it all, but that's not what I'm concerned with. I've dealt with misery before, and I'll do it again. It's the way true fans are. We don't waver. We become stronger.

So come on, everyone. My heart is ready to be broken again.