That old familiar optimism

Its mid-summer and anything seems possible

As I sit writing at my home in Raleigh, the living room windows resemble shower glass. Steam obscures the view, rendering the trees and grass and shrubs beyond a shapeless mass of green. When the calendar turns to July, with its blast furnace days and barren sports calendar, my thoughts turn naturally to pigskin and the cool relief of fall.¹

I will always be excited by the approach of another Carolina football season. The old familiar optimism and good feelings creep back in, overcoming whatever stale disappointment might linger from the prior year.

Sure, college football is not what it once was. The modern game, with its revolving door of one-and-done portal transfers, has deadened my enthusiasm to a degree. That, in combination with the inevitable excesses of NIL makes it harder to feel an emotional attachment to athletes like we used to.

Gone are the days of watching athletes in one uniform throughout a career; who pay their dues as freshmen and sophomores; who become leaders and starters as juniors and seniors; who give four or five years of their lives, shedding buckets of blood, sweat, and tears for the University of South Carolina (or whatever school you pull for).

Players will continue to set single-game and season statistical records, but career records will rarely be broken given the transiency of modern college athletes, and somehow that’s just sad.

To that, add the sinking realization that the rich will continue get richer, even as the rules of the game fundamentally change. The dream of Gamecock dominance on par with the likes of Alabama or Ohio State or Michigan seems harder to conjure now, in even my more optimistic moments.

The endless shuffling of conference realignment too creates a feeling of instability, as century-old rivalries and common sense geographical alignments fall victim to the pursuit of more money. Above all else, always more money.

But hey, that’s okay, because nothing says “Big Ten football” like a UCLA-Rutgers matchup, right?

Despite it all, as we approach the annual pre-season SEC Media Days event in just eight days, I find the slow burn of excitement for football season starting to return. Maybe it’s a zombie instinct, a naturally occurring phenomena akin to the migratory movement of birds. Its deeply ingrained and involuntary - “a magnetic pull that draws from pine roots and kudzu vines for those born among them,” as the esteemed poet James Dickey wrote of returning to his native South in the late 1960’s.

A different calculus

The revolutions of NIL and the transfer portal, and the dizzying merry-go-round of conference realignment (I was just fine with 12 SEC teams, thank you very much), have changed the reasons I watch college football.

I pull for Shane Beamer now, because he is the only coach in my lifetime who is possessed by a passion for the University of South Carolina on par with most Gamecock fans. And I pull for the boys wearing garnet during any given season, even if they will vanish into the ravenous portal in eight months time. Jerry Seinfeld famously joked that we don’t pull for players so much as we cheer for clothes, and I think he was spot on.

I don’t know what the 2024 season holds in store for Gamecock Nation. One thing do I know is there will be a murderers’ row of Southeastern Conference powers awaiting Beamer and crew this fall. There always is. Sports Illustrated ranks Carolina’s strength of schedule the 4th-toughest in the land. It’s always top five, year in and year out. There is no easy path to a championship, or even six wins and a bowl. The Atlantic Coast Conference this is not.

Even still, that old familiar optimism cuts through the July heat and humidity, offering a cool balm of hope (some might say “hopium”).

But it was always about more than wins and losses anyway. It was always about the shared experience of tailgating, of celebrating (or commiserating), and of renewing the old bonds of family and friendship in a setting most of us have known and loved since we were kids. In this deeply divided age, those bonds (any bonds) are more important now than ever.

And as we approach the fortieth anniversary of 1984, that most magical and unexpected of seasons, I’m reminded that lightning can be caught in a bottle during any given year, given just a hint of luck and that old Black Magic.

1. July does bring the Tour de France - that most legendary of the European grand cycling tours - with its sweeping helicopter views of bucolic French landscapes and the drama of suffering and strategy that unfolds over three long weeks. The estimable Phil Liggett supplements his expert cycling narratives with granular histories of ancient villages and castles as the peloton speeds by, all with his patented English brogue. Its a most pleasant way to pass the doldrums of mid-summer, between the College World Series in June and the start of football practice in August.