Column: Pitt sports: passing disappointment, suffering between generations

There’s something about being a Pitt sports fan that I just can’t explain.

Maybe it’s the inferiority complex we’ve all adopted as a result of being surrounded by Penn Staters and their unhealthy obsession with their football team. Or perhaps it’s the villains we’ve established: Todd Graham, Khem Birch and Rushel Shell.

The relationship between me, my father and Pitt athletics has been incredibly personal. Since I was 11 years old, my dad and I have attended Pitt football and basketball games, putting ourselves in a state of misery each and every year. Pitt would break our hearts and then provide us with nuggets that brought us back. It was an unbreakable cycle, it seemed.

Take, for instance, Pitt’s loss against Butler in the second round of the NCAA Tournament in 2011. Pitt entered the tournament as a No. 1 seed, and most analysts considered the Panthers a legitimate national-title contender. Pitt’s bracket was arguably the weakest among all No. 1 seeds. This was it — our year. 

That hope, of course, came to a screeching halt as Pitt forward Nasir Robinson fouled Butler’s Gordon Hayward, sending him to the foul line, where he would nail two shots to win the game.

In my Sutherland East dorm room, I fell to my knees and buried my face in my hands. What did Pitt fans do to deserve this? 

I called my dad, whom I blame for turning me into a Pitt sports fan, and asked him the same question: Why Pitt? 

My dad, as he almost always does, replied succinctly: “I’m not a superstitious person, but I think we’re cursed.” 

“Cursed” was a word that was uttered many times throughout my four years at Pitt. Remember the loss to Youngstown State in football in Paul Chryst’s first game as head football coach. Or Pitt basketball losing the two most highly-recruited players in program history, Khem Birch and Steven Adams, preemptively?

All of these experiences were no doubt awful, but one game during my junior year at Pitt defined my relationship with the University’s teams.  

When Pitt’s football team fell to Notre Dame in triple overtime during my junior year after kicker Kevin Harper missed two chip-shot field goals that would’ve given the Panthers an upset victory over a team ranked No. 1 in the country, I left my Ward Street apartment and went on a walk, hoping to find someone who shared my frustration. 

To me, it always seemed as though the average Pitt student was apathetic about the football team, but this time, I heard that ‘C’-word everywhere I walked, from the entrance of Peter’s Pub to the Cathedral of Learning. 

Once again, I called my dad, hoping for some kind words. He had just finished watching the game, having DVR-ed it. This time, he was truly at a loss for words: “I don’t understand why this keeps happening.” 

OK, my dad had given up hope. Maybe it was a good time for me to abandon ship, put my school spirit aside and find another college team to root for. And the opportunity did present itself. Earlier this year, I accepted an offer to teach high school English in Baton Rouge, La., through Teach for America, putting me in the heart of Louisiana State University territory. Sure, the Tigers are arguably the Pitt of the Southeastern Conference, but at least I could go to a football game and sit in a crowd of more than 90,000 screaming fans, watching the team compete against Alabama and Auburn. 

Was I giving up? Absolutely. But there’s no way I was the only one. Naturally, this hopelessness was short-lived, because Pitt always does something to keep me coming back for more.

It was one of those games Pitt always lost, competing against a nationally ranked team on primetime television. The Fighting Irish had traveled to Pittsburgh, seeking to take down the Panthers for the fourth-straight year. Not only did the game feature a Pitt fourth-quarter comeback, but the Panthers held on to the lead, winning for the first time against a team I’d grown to hate over the course of my college career. 

Heinz Field was electric. Freshman receiver Tyler Boyd jumped into the Panther Pitt, mimicking the famous Lambeau Leap popularized by the Green Bay Packers. Hope, for the first time in a while, was restored. 

Pitt didn’t finish the season very well, but that one glimmer of hope — hope that Chryst’s message was finally reaching his players — kept me interested. Forget LSU, I thought. I’m a Pitt man for life. 

For the final time, I called my dad after the Notre Dame game and asked him how he felt about it. Unsurprisingly, he kept it simple. “Finally,” he said. 

We never learn.

Write to Patrick at editor@pittnews.com.