Mo's Thoughts, Interesting...

Decent piece from Mo Egger:

http://www.espn1530.com/pages/mo.html

Remember second week of December 2009? It was a busy sports week in this town. We had a 9-3 Bengals team getting ready for a road matchup against the Vikings, we had the Crosstown Shootout on the horizon, we'd just come off of RedsFest, and UC had just won the Big East title and completed a 12-0 season with a win in the Greatest Sporting Event Ever in Pittsburgh.

And all of those things were dwarfed by Brian Kelly.

I did 15 hours of radio that week. The Bengals recently completed game against Detroit and their upcoming matchup against Minnesota generated maybe five calls all week. The UC/XU game didn't even register. The busiest week of phone calls ever to our show was dominated by people wanting to talk about UC losing a football coach.

The calls were passion-filled, and there were so many different angles and opinions that it made for a great week of sports-talk radio.

During that week, here's the call I received most often:

"MO! WHERE'S BRIAN KELLY'S LOYALTY? THIS MAN HAS TO BE LOYAL! THOSE KIDS DESERVE LOYALTY! THIS SCHOOL DESERVES LOYALTY! THESE DAMN COACHES HAVE NO LOYALTY!"

I got that call a lot.

Fast forward to the last week of August, 2011. The Bearcats are preparing to begin their second season post-BK. Disaffection with the Bengals is at an all-time high and the Reds are wrapping up a thoroughly disappointing season, but the Bearcat football program has seen their season ticket numbers plummet by more than 20%. From Bill Koch...

With a little more than a week before UC opens its 2011 football season against Austin Peay on Sept. 3, season ticket sales are down 22 percent from last year.

UC, which went 4-8 last year after winning back-to-back Big East championships in 2008 and 2009, has sold 12,348 season tickets for 2011 compared with 15,899 in 2010.

OK, makes sense. Last year's team wasn't very good, there's kind of a wait-and-see attitude among fans regarding this year's team, the non-conference home schedule doesn't do much to inspire excitement, and economy is still in the dumper. And I'm not the kind of guy who bangs on people for going or not going to games. What you do with your money is your business, and deciding to not buy a ticket doesn't at all make you less of a fan.

But I can't help but think about all those phone calls...how upset people were, how passionate they came across, how they made it seem that the loss of an uber-successful coach made them dig their heels in, in unwavering support of the program. Those calls that week were from people who sounded like the kind of fans who buy in for life, regardless of the coach, regardless of the opponent, regardless of the quality of the team.

"MO! I DEMAND LOYALTY! AND WE JUST SAW A COACH WHO HAS NONE WALK OUT THE DOOR! THE NEW COACH MUST BE LOYAL TO THIS PROGRAM, TO THIS SCHOOL, AND THIS CITY."

I wonder how many of those people who didn't re-up for 2011 called my show that week, emphatically banging on someone else's lack of loyalty. I kinda wonder where their loyalty is to the program they spoke so passionately about.

These people spoke of an unconditional loyalty, the kind that transcends decisions to chase a lifelong dream by accepting a job higher up the professional rung. Notre Dame might be Notre Dame but damn-nit, we still wanted the coach to be loyal, right?

I guess loyalty is indeed conditional after all. We're willing to be loyal as long as the team is winning. Just like Brian Kelly, or any other coach's decision has nothing to do about "the kids," nor does our decision whether to financially invest in said kids. I remember those phone calls - "MO! BRIAN KELLY HAS TURNED HIS BACK ON THOSE KIDS! THESE POOR KIDS DON'T HAVE A COACH!" - and I wonder how many former ticket holders have turned their back on some of those same kids they expressed so much deep concern for. Maybe it's only the kids who are good football players who deserve our loyalty.

Look, I don't care who goes and doesn't go to games, and if you've decided not to buy into UC football this season, that's completely OK. You'll enjoy the season and follow the team to the extent you want, and so will I. Emotional investments make us fans, not financial ones. But next time we start hammering an outsider for not showing the program the loyalty we'd like them to, maybe we should look in the mirror and wonder if we hold ourselves to the same standards.