1/15/2024
The Fear of Winning
How Two Brothers Found Themselves on Opposite Sides of the Biggest Game of the Year.
“Careful man, I’m a husky.”
“We’re brothers.”
“You’re brothers? Where do you live.”
“He lives in San Francisco and I live in D.C.”
“No I mean like where are y’all from.”
“Oh we’re from Savannah, Georgia.”
“And YOU went to Michigan and YOU went to Washington?”
“Yessir.”
“mhhm.”
“That’s incredible. Well you gotta have a bet on the game or something.”
NRG Stadium during the National Championship
The mid-2000s Georgia Bulldogs were a confusing bunch. Everyone in Savannah would sport their Bulldog Red all year only for their supremely talented UGA squad to fold within the first month of the season. As Jewish carpetbaggers, my family felt lost in the college football landscape of the Deep South. My dad would wear a beat up Florida hat he found on the street to rile up our neighbors. One of my earliest Georgia football memories is driving up to Athens to watch an eighteen year old Matthew Stafford and the #16 ranked Bulldogs lose to a 3-4 Vanderbilt team on homecoming. I remember watching Vandy’s last second field goal floating through the uprights and thinking to myself, “These guys (Georgia) are losers, why does everyone like them so much?”
There is nothing in this country as pure as college football. In the NFL, players are Gods and celebrities. In college, players are still Gods, and they’re still celebrities, but they’re also in your Intro to Psych lecture and playing pick up basketball at your frat house. Cities are galvanized by their NFL teams. States go to war for their college football teams. I wanted in on this action, so when my brother decided to attend the University of Michigan in 2011, I latched on. Michigan, like Georgia, was a powerhouse in limbo. That seemed poised to change when a kid who went by the nickname “Shoelace” graced the grand stage of the Big House. Denard Robinson’s scrambles were reminiscent of all the great mobile quarterbacks, and he had the charisma to match. Even at 13, I liked going against the grain, and Michigan served as the perfect zag to my classmates’ UGA zig. I rocked my Desmond Howard “strike a pose” and “Michigan Brother'' t-shirts everywhere. I learned the words to The Victors. I think I was the first fan on the field when Michigan beat Michigan State for the first time in five years in 2012, and I have the photo evidence to prove it (you can tell it’s 2012 by the Tebow pose and phone camera quality). I stood in the student section every time I visited and had my first few beers in Ann Arbor. By 15, I probably thought I went there.
Tebowing in the end zone after UM topped MSU in 2012
Yet, when I got into the University of Washington through a serendipitous appeal process and touched down in Seattle, it was time to fall in love all over again, and again, it was easy. A great color scheme helps. A great stadium and tailgate culture doesn’t hurt. And a record-shattering offense and College Football Playoff appearance my first year on campus was the cherry on top. Like many who go to D-1 universities across the country, a great deal of my favorite college memories are attached to Dawg Saturdays. When you go to a game in Seattle, tailgate by the water with the Huskies, sit up high in “The Greatest Setting in College Football”, and look out onto the Cascades and Lake Washington as the purple and gold fly around, you will want to become a Dawg yourself. If you spend extended time on the University of Washington’s evergreen-laden campus, you get the honor of calling yourself one.
While I was fortunate to be there for four of the most successful years in the program’s recent history under the guidance of Coach Petersen, it seemed like the Huskies had found the ceiling. To compete for a National Title with the powerhouses in the South and Midwest was half a step too far. A young man (or old man in college football terms) named Michael Penix Jr. shifted this perspective last winter when he shocked the college football world and decided to return for his final year of eligibility instead of heading to the NFL draft. This decision coincided with my return to the United States from living abroad. The UK is getting more and more familiar with the game of American football. Bars are hosting evening long watch parties and Tottenham Hotspur Stadium is hosting the best teams every year now (not just the Jags).
Yet, college football hasn’t quite landed in Scotland yet, and I found myself missing it. I love college football for many of the same reasons that I have become completely obsessed with European football. Walking through The Grove or Sailgating before the Apple Cup is America’s answer to flooding the streets of Milan with red and black before the Derby della Madonnina. I savored this season as both my Huskies and my brother’s Wolverines overcame hurdle after hurdle. January 1st was probably the most stressful day of my 2024 as I sweat through a few pairs of socks waiting for the kickoff of the Rose Bowl. I let out a primitive roar as the Michigan front thwarted Jalen Milroe to end the game before locking in for what was going to be a tightly-contested Sugar Bowl. After recounting all of this on the phone with my brother the following day, we both suddenly became quiet, and I asked him,
“So what are we gonna do?”
I had no idea my brother had already splashed on the tickets, and he and I were in for the game of a lifetime.
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I like losers. My favorite sports team is Everton. My NFL team is the Jets. When I moved to Seattle, I traded my Yankees jersey in for a Mariners hat. The excitement of having one of my favorite teams guaranteed a National Championship was brushed aside by the more pressing concern of having to watch one of my favorite teams lose in the National Championship. This is, what many would call, “loser talk,” but old habits die hard, and I was a wreck in the days leading up to the game.
In Houston, a Cafe Cubano, Texas BBQ with old friends, and quality time with my brother’s girlfriend’s bulldog all eased my anxiety. The tornado, lightning, and hail circling the stadium then built the anticipation of a Hollywood battle scene. When the teams ran out of their tunnels at NRG, it was finally real, and as Grady Gross teed the ball up for the opening kickoff, I looked to my left. My brother and his girlfriend stood in the foreground in their navy block M hats, and in the background, tens of thousands of Huskies threw their arms towards the field in unison for our traditional “cap wave”. All of my favorite memories began flooding back. I hadn’t been to a college football game since I graduated in 2020, and now, I was standing next to my brother watching my alma mater play against his in the National Championship game. This game was not a lose-lose but a win-win.
Ben and I minutes before Michigan would seal the championshipI was emotional at the beginning of the game and my brother shared some emotions towards the end as captain Mike Sainristil secured the Wolverine’s victory with a late interception. I’m sure part of his emotion was joy following the years of Wolverine disappointment, part of it was having to see the game end, and part of it was the journey. Two brothers, raised by Northern parents in Southern sports culture, one that fled to Michigan and the other to Seattle, meeting in Houston for the biggest game of the year. We could not have asked for more, and it will (probably) never happen again. The demolition of UW’s program following the game and the uncertainty around Harbaugh’s future at Michigan has served as reminders of how quickly the college football landscape can shift. The impending Big 10 showdowns in Seattle and Ann Arbor will bring us more great memories in the years to come, but we’ll always have the 2024 National Championship to look back on. The day when two brothers on opposite sides won.
. .