Emotional Reactions To Football Sporting Events

I only get furious when i fell Cal has been treated unfairly (see Brown, Mack). Otherwise Cal losses just make me a sad panda

I think it’s a generational difference. Those of us with a long history with Cal football and how it’s been neglected for decades (thanks my freshman year prez, Ira Michael Heyman!), we have a more mellow view. We understand that this is an unprecedented (at least modern era) epoch in Cal football history. Those who come to Cal in the past seven years react like we’re supposed to be USC. They’ve always seen Cal win, so their bar is different. As a result, we get different emotions. I’m always perturbed at the newbies because of these “entitled” responses. But it is what it is as some philosopher probably said.

So, while it feels incredibly satisfying to watch success, it is emotionally irrational to allow negative emotion over football failure.

I agree that it’s not worth getting furious about, and I appreciate your positivity regarding the big picture of spending a good day with friends. However, I think fandom necessarily means an emotionally irrational attachment to a team, and that emotion can take many forms. Getting upset over a bad loss is just another expression of fandom. People can have emotionally irrational reactions to other forms of entertainment like movies or whatnot; why not football?

Another point is that we let the football team subsume the greater identity of the university community, and if the football team disappoints, then we, as football fans, believe that that loss reflects on the us. Even if rationally we were to say that we had little or nothing to do with the on-field performance, we are emotionally attached to this team because we’ve all adopted the identity of the Cal community. Maybe this makes no rational sense, but on some level neither does spending three hours watching 11 players try to move a piece of leather across a field; in other words, it doesn’t have to make sense for us to be fans.

No…not going to do it…no way.

To now act like its no big deal, like losing is second nature to a Cal fan, is a cop-out. We were on the cusp of a kick-ass finish to a good season, one that showed mettle and mental toughness – a certain resiliency we lacked in past years.

And we blew it against Washington.

So yeah, I’m furious. Furious because we know we’re capable of so much more. If we sucked, it we were Wazzu, I’d probably be more chill about it, but that’s not the case. We have an amazing team, arguably the most talented in the Pac-10. And so its infuriating to see them play so far below what they’re capable of.

I love when we win and I spit bile when we lose. Multiply those by 10 when Stanfurd is the opponent. That’s why I’ll be dead by 40.

……actually, my perspective is USUALLY precisely the same as yours, complete with the band experience and everything. But for some reason Big Game made me a believer (which as a Cal fan one should never do) and then we got sucker-punched the next game. And it was all due to lack of effort and preparation. Hence, anger. I dislike being emotionally toyed with by 20 year olds so I’m also kind of angry that I got angry.

A win would have made a pretty good season, overall, despite blowout losses to USC and Oregon. Losing to UW, though, stopped that. UW is a team that is not as good as Cal – Cal should have won. And not only did Cal lose, they got stomped badly. So yeah, I was upset and angry that they lost. Not at anyone individually, or even at the team as a whole, just that it happened that way. Furious is a much stronger word for what I felt, but looking at the poll options, it was at least the same emotion (if only a completely different level) – whereas all the other options were completely different emotions, even if they were describing a more reasonable level of the given emotion.

So basically, blame whoever made the poll! It’s their fault. I’m furious at them for misunderstanding my emotions!

extremely extremely annoyed I guess was my feeling. Very close to furious.

These are young guys, but this is the end of the regular season after they have apparently worked very hard with up and down results and getting better and better and had a great Big Game…and should be peaking further with focus and excitement and energy….and what in the world brought on such an apparent ‘whatever’ attitude…??
Not sure if the team was ‘reading their press’ before the Oregon game…let alone SC which followed…
and Tedford had managed it appeared to keep the team from imploding after SC and we get to the Big Game and hang in there and WIN!

With two weeks an inevitable let down should have been gotten past and we should have been UP and ready to Roll with UW….‘reading the predictions again’ seems to be what happened. What???? Player problem? Coaching problem?

Some teams apparently just don’t GET it! Or players just mentally tired?

totally totally annoyed that all the gains culminating in the Big Game win were just tossed away….

This season a loss has been enough to kind of spoil my weekend, but I’m getting better at coping.

The thing for me is just that the players on the field don’t owe me anything. What business do I have getting angry at a bunch of 19 and 20 year olds when they don’t meet my expectations? It just seems so petty.

….for crappy games to serve as motivators for future games. But really good teams find other ways to motivate.