Life of a Pitt fan: Supporting the Panthers can be up-and-down experience

The life of the Pitt fan can be a painful existence. The life of the Pitt fan can be a painful existence.

As you would expect, being an athlete or team in the “City of Champions” — a popular nickname for Pittsburgh due to the large number of trophies its teams have collected over the years — comes with incredible pressure to succeed. Similarly, being a fan in the “City of Champions” comes with blinding pride, high expectations and an unyielding, burning hatred for losing.

At Pitt, we have suffered heartbreak. Most recently, it came in the form of an inconceivable foul against Butler in the 2011 NCAA Tournament that prematurely knocked our No. 1-seeded Panthers out of the Big Dance.

We have overcome tribulations. They came in the form of four head football coaches in less than two years.

But being a Pitt fan isn’t all bad. This past year was an outlier in terms of struggle, and the victories of the past continue to better define Pitt’s sports.

We have won championships. They recently came in bunches as we tore through basketball’s most competitive conference. On the football field, they came at a time when Afros and disco music were cool and nobody could bring down Tony Dorsett, who won the 1976 Heisman Trophy and led Pitt to its last national championship the same season.

And, of course, we have our rivalries. Nothing beats the tension of Pitt and West Virginia fans sharing a stadium or arena.

Few things compare to the buzz you will feel when you return to Oakland from Heinz Field or the Petersen Events Center knowing that Pitt just dominated those annoying Mountaineers from next door. For the Pitt fan, there is something unbearably ugly about that Mountaineer blue and yellow — so similar to our blue and gold, yet so remarkably different.

With the label of Pitt Athletics comes a tradition few can rival.

Pitt remains one of only five Division I schools to have multiple national championships in football (nine) and basketball (two) — even though those titles were won decades ago. Names like Dan Marino, Mike Ditka and Tony Dorsett will represent us forever. The Panther itself is a metaphor for the school’s athletic dominance. It was, at one time, the most powerful animal that roamed western Pennsylvania.

But the life of the Pitt fan isn’t just about wins and losses — even in the “City of Champions.”

The life of the Pitt fan is about the echoing deafness you’ll experience in the Oakland Zoo student section when the lights go out at the Petersen Events Center as our starting lineup takes the court. The life of the Pitt fan is about the satisfaction you feel from crumpling up that newspaper roster sheet and joining the Zoo in the madness that is called college basketball.

It’s also about camaraderie. The Pitt fan knows camaraderie when he or she spends a winter afternoon weathering a Pitt football tailgate. The Pitt fan knows camaraderie when he or she hears those first notes of “Sweet Caroline” — the popular tune that has recently become a momentum-shifting tradition for the Panthers at the end of the third quarter — blaring through the speakers at Heinz Field.

Sometimes, the life of the Pitt fan can come with some obscurity. Take pride in our quality wrestling program. Find excitement in the successful Ultimate Frisbee team. Cheer on the swimmers, track runners, or even rugby and volleyball athletes. The Pitt fan can always find someone to root for.

And, as we’ve seen this year, the life of the Pitt fan can be challenging. Sometimes the Pitt fan is one of the stunned faces on the Petersen Events Center jumbotron, staring in shock as Long Beach State leaves our building with a very rare victory.

But this pain is what makes the Pitt fan so special.

The Pitt fan knows that wins don’t come without losses, that national championships are not earned by quitters or pouters.

When Pitt fans experience those difficult-to-swallow losses, they rally behind their teams with support, knowing that being a Panther means those wins will come. Just this past season, when the Pitt basketball team’s disappointing season appeared to be over, the Panthers accepted a bid to the obscure College Basketball Invitational and won a championship — even though it wasn’t quite the one we wanted.

The life of the Pitt fan can be a painful existence, but with that existence will come numerous experiences that will make four years of college here a lot more memorable.

Editor’s note: Isaac Saul is a member of the Ultimate Frisbee team.