the ugly truth is...

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Minnesota fans are pessimistic. Sure there are a few of us optimistic types but for the most part its doom and gloom.Yea yea no need to say the "if we could win, I'd be optimistic". I know, I hear a lot of that and "show me something first". One thing is certain-pessimism will always result in failure. Encouragement and optimism always creates opportunity. Its like luck, no such thing. If you get "lucky", you created an opportunity with effort, opportunity and encouragement.
 


gopherjay said:
Minnesota fans are pessimistic. Sure there are a few of us optimistic types but for the most part its doom and gloom.Yea yea no need to say the "if we could win, I'd be optimistic". I know, I hear a lot of that and "show me something first". One thing is certain-pessimism will always result in failure. Encouragement and optimism always creates opportunity. Its like luck, no such thing. If you get "lucky", you created an opportunity with effort, opportunity and encouragement.
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I agree with most of that. To agree with all of it I'd change the last sentence to: "If you get successful , you created an opportunity with effort, opportunity and encouragement."

A football's bounce, an untimely injury to your side, a timely injury to the other, a field goal bouncing through, or away? That's all luck.

Let's hope the Gophers get it all...not a universal feeling around here unfortunately.
 


The Twins of 87 & 91 showed us Minnesotans how to be optimists. But only the Gopher Hockey & Wrestling teams of nearly a decade ago, have shown younger Gopher fans that we can be champions. (maybe some smaller sports that I don't remember also)

But when it comes to being a Gopher fan in Football or Basketball in my lifetime, only the Clem Haskins final 4 team gave me a whif of that (only to be erased). I normally am a positive person, and love the Gophers through and through. I like to talk reality about them, not just pessimism or optimism. Many people do seem just to be negative about the Gophers, while others want to step all over negativity. I'd like to believe that someday, the Gophers will get to the Rose Bowl. I just would like that season to be quicker, rather than later. Hey, Northwestern did it!
 


I hate to be negative, too.

It's just that most Minnesota fans (Vikings, Gophers, Twins, etc.) have had our hearts ripped out so many times, that we have trust issues. It is like dating, If you get burned enough times, you will start having intimacy issues. Then, you start going out with this totally positive, go-getting, sis-boom-ba cheerleading girlfriend who doesn't play hard-to-get, and it kinda gets annoying.

OK, that's a bad analogy. But for the first time I can remember, someone in the opinion media actually wrote a positive column about Brewster. I tip my hat to the Pioneer Press' Tom Powers. He could have taken the easy way out and ripped on Brewster. But I don't know how much more negative things you can say about him. Brewster's public persona is that he eats, sleeps, drinks Gophers football. And in some ways, that's encouraging.
 

The next time I win the Power Ball I will consider myself lucky.
 

There's a reason for the pessimism. Years and years of losing. It's hard to shake that.

Aside from some of the Clem years that have been erased from the books, when was the last time the men's hoops team finished in the top 3 of the B10?

A: 1982 :eek:

How about the football team? Tied for 3rd in 1986.

Who would've thought....
 

Art Vandelay said:
There's a reason for the pessimism. Years and years of losing. It's hard to shake that.

Aside from the Clem years that have been erased from the books, when was the last time the men's hoops team finished in the top 3 of the B10?

1982 :eek:

How about the footbal team? Tied for 3rd in 1986.

Who would've thought....
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Man.

That hurts my insides.
 



Is there any correlation between optimism and those who no longer endure Minnesota winters?
 

I am not sure what I think, but there is a stream of fatalism flowing throughout the state. It expresses itself in everyday conversation about the weather when it has been beyond expectation that this cannot last. We are fated to be punished. Nothing good can last. I rail against it every time I hear it.

Now when you take that to the fans of the Gophers or Vikings you have to add what I call the unreasonable expectation factor into the equation. Sure we were playing about as good as we could going into the Michigan game. It was a night game, it was a sell out and we took it to Michigan only to have them come back. The Championship games when Gary Anderson misses. He was perfect, hadn't missed all year. Was it reasonable to think he could not miss? And then the silent anger ensuses with a feeling we must be cursed.

The Gophers must fight that here we go again feeling every time they take the field. I can only hope that the coaching staff uses visualization techniques each week. And if I were Coach Brewster I would have someone from the Physoclogy Department on the training staff.
 


gopherjay said:
Minnesota fans are pessimistic. Sure there are a few of us optimistic types but for the most part its doom and gloom.Yea yea no need to say the "if we could win, I'd be optimistic". I know, I hear a lot of that and "show me something first". One thing is certain-pessimism will always result in failure. Encouragement and optimism always creates opportunity. Its like luck, no such thing. If you get "lucky", you created an opportunity with effort, opportunity and encouragement.
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You can be optimistic that things are going to turn the corner based on results.

Sometimes it works out, sometimes it doesn't. For football, the most recent time we were truly close to a breakthrough was in 1999 (or perhaps 2003). In 99 we were needed one of two plays in two games (one play in each game) that we ended up losing by a few points from winning the big ten/going to the rose bowl. If that had happened, who knows what might have happened differently (e.g. Mason might have left after that season). That near miss gave me optimism and hope for a few years and helped me overlook the collapse in 2000 after Middlebrooks got hurt and Indiana showed the rest of the big ten how much we missed Dyron Russ (a testament to how good a college football player Russ was that it took midway through the season before anyone tried to run up the middle, btw). I get this is what you are talking about. We were close and prepared to take advantage of the opportunities if they came, and just couldn't.

And you can be optimistic based on optimism. "I hope that 2010's football season will unfold differently than the past three" without any basis in results that suggest there is reason for that optimism.

Unfortunately, this is where I find myself and many posters on this board feel. Perhaps things will take a major shift in year 4 (or five or six or 10 depending on what appears to be the "optimism" of the poster involved) but in three years, a pattern in Brewster's ability as a coach has appeared that does not give me optimism at this point.

That being said, the only optimism I see is in hoping a new outcome will come from the same set of parameters being executed again and again and again. While you may consider that Optimism, some call that insanity.

I hope Brewster will turn things around, but have little optimism he will. All the talent in the world will not make up for the lack of discipline and direction his program has demonstrated on the field. We'll just have "better" undisciplined and poorly coached players.

I don't think this makes me realistic, nor pessimistic, I just don't have the optimism behind my hopes that things will get better because there have been no signs that this program was moving in the right direction for 6 years. At best, after a brief return to the Wacker years, we have managed in 3 seasons to limp back to Mason's last year.
 



caliGopher said:
You can be optimistic that things are going to turn the corner based on results.

Sometimes it works out, sometimes it doesn't. For football, the most recent time we were truly close to a breakthrough was in 1999 (or perhaps 2003). In 99 we were needed one of two plays in two games (one play in each game) that we ended up losing by a few points from winning the big ten/going to the rose bowl. If that had happened, who knows what might have happened differently (e.g. Mason might have left after that season). That near miss gave me optimism and hope for a few years and helped me overlook the collapse in 2000 after Middlebrooks got hurt and Indiana showed the rest of the big ten how much we missed Dyron Russ (a testament to how good a college football player Russ was that it took midway through the season before anyone tried to run up the middle, btw). I get this is what you are talking about. We were close and prepared to take advantage of the opportunities if they came, and just couldn't.

And you can be optimistic based on optimism. "I hope that 2010's football season will unfold differently than the past three" without any basis in results that suggest there is reason for that optimism.

Unfortunately, this is where I find myself and many posters on this board feel. Perhaps things will take a major shift in year 4 (or five or six or 10 depending on what appears to be the "optimism" of the poster involved) but in three years, a pattern in Brewster's ability as a coach has appeared that does not give me optimism at this point.

That being said, the only optimism I see is in hoping a new outcome will come from the same set of parameters being executed again and again and again. While you may consider that Optimism, some call that insanity.

I hope Brewster will turn things around, but have little optimism he will. All the talent in the world will not make up for the lack of discipline and direction his program has demonstrated on the field. We'll just have "better" undisciplined and poorly coached players.

I don't think this makes me realistic, nor pessimistic, I just don't have the optimism behind my hopes that things will get better because there have been no signs that this program was moving in the right direction for 6 years. At best, after a brief return to the Wacker years, we have managed in 3 seasons to limp back to Mason's last year.
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One thing to keep in mind is that Brewster still only has three years of coaching experience. He is still learning on the job, and should improve. I do not agree with all of your points, but I don't want this be derailed into another thread about the merits of Brewster's abilities.
 

So to put it a bit differently, being a Minnesota sports fan makes as much logical sense for most of us as swinging a golf club.
 


There is luck, not in the sense of some supernatural force, but freaky things happen. The ball bounces funny, sometimes it bounces right back to you, other times it bounces away to the other team. Luck can decide a game or decide a championship. It's when luck always seems to go one way that there is something else operating besides luck. Good luck should happen about as often as bad luck.

You can't conclude "The Gophers are unlucky, so they will do badly". If luck is operating just in one direction, then some other problem needs to be addressed.
 

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