Expectations can make or break a successful season

Did you ever actually stop and think about how much media and fan expectations affect a… Did you ever actually stop and think about how much media and fan expectations affect a team?

Look at a team like the Pittsburgh Pirates, for example. Expectations for the club are at an all-time low. If the team even sniffs .500, fans will be ecstatic. If they make even the slightest run at a division title, the city would throw them a parade and manager Lloyd McClendon would become a local celebrity.

But with the Pirates, expectations have been so low for so long that there is rarely any excitement in the clubhouse. With 11 consecutive, painful losing seasons and counting, the players have grown accustomed to losing. And even when something good does happen, players still seem uptight and sound far from optimistic.

The New York Yankees represent the other side of this equation. Can you imagine what would happen if the Yankees went .500 this season? Or if they lost in the first round of the playoffs? The team would be dismantled faster than the Pirates’ bullpen could blow a late-inning lead.

Expectations set the tone in competitive athletics. They dictate what constitutes great plays, good wins, and satisfactory seasons. The entire atmosphere at any ballgame revolves around the expectations surrounding the team.

So what happens when a team comes out and announces the highest of expectations for itself?

Last August, Walt Harris walked into his first press conference at media day and stated that the football team’s goal was to win every game, and win a national championship.

Naturally, after the team lost at Toledo, then got completely embarrassed by Julius Jones and the Fighting Irish at Heinz Field, fans and media expressed disappointment. And why not? After all, if the team’s own goal was to win every game, I’d say losing to two mediocre opponents would give fans every right to gripe.

Nothing could be worse than setting the bar too high. Harris was probably just feeling confident about the team’s returning talent, and wanted to generate some more excitement around the team after the whole Big East Conference fiasco.

The team would have had high expectations coming into this season regardless of Harris’ pledge. But if he had simply said that the team’s goal was to win a Big East title, he would have had something to fall back on when the team began the year at 3-2 heading into conference play.

The other side of the coin here on the Pitt campus is the men’s basketball team who, after losing coach Ben Howland and point guard Brandin Knight, was picked to finish fourth in the Big East.

Sure, everyone was hoping the Panthers would advance past the Sweet 16 at the end of this season. But let’s be honest, outside of Jamie Dixon and the players themselves, not many predicted the kind of success the team experienced this year.

The result of the early success was an electric atmosphere filled with fans who were pumped about a team that went out and overachieved.

Whether it is the fans and media setting the expectations on the team, or the team setting high standards for itself, those expectations are what determine a team’s attitude and identity.

Let’s face it; no matter how much money players and coaches make, fans still have the real power. Without the fans, the games couldn’t be played. And when fans aren’t happy, they make their voices heard. And once those voices get loud enough, they can almost always bring about change.

This is Ryan Walker’s final column of the semester, and if he even has any fans out there, he would like to thank them for keeping their expectations low and not sending too many nasty e-mails to rpw973@pitt.edu.