Sour Oranges

The other day I was talking sports with my neighbor. As it happens, he is the other Denver Broncos fan living in the city of Oakland. We both agreed that this year had been a good one so far, and he wondered if maybe this would be the year that we, or rather the Broncos football team, might make it back to the Super Bowl. "But really," he confided in me, "I just want 'em to beat the Raiders." He went on to expound on his various allegiances and rooting interests. He told me that he really only watched football and rugby, and the other team he was sure that he didn't want to win anything was the Dallas Cowboys. "Or the New York Yankees," he practically spit.
I began to form a picture that made sense to me. He was doing the classic underdog gambit. The one where you can't root for teams that have been successful for any amount of time. Winning traditions are boring. It's much more interesting to hook up with the group of guys who struggle a bit.
I recognized this trend in myself. Once upon a time, the University of Colorado Buffaloes' football team was a perennial also-ran in what was then the Big Eight Conference. We accepted our place just behind Nebraska and Oklahoma as the powers in the ways of the pigskin. Every so often, we might beat one or the other, but never both in the same year. Then in the late 1980's, things began to shift. Suddenly CU became a football powerhouse, and we ended up playing in the Orange Bowl against Notre Dame. Those were heady times. Now that the Buffaloes have switched to the somewhat arbitrarily constructed Pac-12 conference and taken up residence in the cellar, I feel more comfortable with my fandom.
Notre Dame. The very notion of their Golden Domes causes me to gnash my teeth. They were the only college team I knew of back in my youth to have their own TV show. Not just in South Bend, but across the country. When Colorado finally beat the Irish on their second attempt at the Orange Bowl, I was satisfied. We had a National Championship. The kind that people could argue about, like we used to in the olden days. We had made it to the top of the mountain, and looking down there wasn't much to see but where we had come from.
Which brings me back to those Denver Broncos. It's been a while since they won a Super Bowl. I wouldn't mind if they did, but I'm guessing that when it's all over, the Orange Crush won't be nearly as sweet.