Oh FFS, you seriously want to watch your favorite team finish last in their conference, get blown out by their arch rival, and lose to MEAC teams? Guess they should just start handing out participation trophies in college right? Like it or not, its all about winning.
You're staring down the rabbit hole of "why should anyone even care about sports to begin with".
I was born in Ames and grew up in Boone.
I have been watching Iowa State (mostly lose, especially in football though less so in basketball from time to time) since as long as I can remember.
I spent literally
thousands of hours in Iowa State's athletic bands during my 5.5 years on campus, including during graduate school when I should have known better, with very little compensation for the time and effort doing it other than a few cold pizzas, some travel to road games and postseason tournaments (stuffed into an overcrowded bus along the way), and what amounted to nice seats at games.
Why did I do it? Because it was fun, and I was there to support our teams. I was there to live and die with them, and I did then and sometimes do now. I have actually worn the uniform of Iowa State University, which not many here have.
I have paid into being a Cyclone fan about as much as one can.
My tenure in Ames equaled the last two years of the decline and fall of the McCarney era, two years of the Gene Chizik experience, and one breakthrough with Rhoads ending in Tempe before a disappointing follow-up the next year. For basketball, I got to see the inglorious end of the Morgan era, four years of McDermott -- each worse than anything we have seen from Prohm, and then one semester of Hoiball.
At least the women's team and volleyball team were good while I was there.
I saw about as much ****** football and basketball as one can see and at direct cost to me (e.g., no bowl or NCAA tournament trips for free when I was in college).
Despite that, some of the righteousness about Prohm's struggles right now is wearing on me. I do not like to lose either, despite having seen plenty of it, but there are really no good ways out of this situation. I have seen about as much bad as one can and have stuck with these teams and this fan base, but the negativity -- even about genuine accomplishments, like winning the Big 12 tournament last year -- is getting old.
Campbell is the best coach we have ever had with maybe the exception of Earle Bruce, and other teams are poaching his staff. Despite that, there are several threads on here calling for their jobs and/or that Campbell has peaked. Prohm is getting drawn and quartered on here right now. I was on the sidelines for the Chizik experience and courtside for McDermott. Trust me, as bad as ND and FAMU were in the past week, imagine having that weekly for football and twice a week for basketball for years on end. It can be
way worse, and it just might be. Either Prohm will suck the next 1.5 or 2.5 years and get fired and we will try to rebuild or he will right the ship and life is going to go on either way.
I will be here either way. I just do not find it that fun to whine about everything. I like the pageantry, tradition, and passion of college sports (which is completing missing watching millionaires play for billionaires in the professional leagues), staying connected to the central Iowa community through this site, and analyzing the strategic and statistical aspects of the game. My posting history would reflect these as my priorities.
Way too many on here have "this sucks" as their obvious priority.