Reading Obituaries With Pleasure

"I have never killed a man, but I have read many obituaries with great pleasure."
- Clarence Darrow

It is a sign of moral weakness to take pleasure in the misery of others. It is even worse when the pleasure comes from a down payment on a grudge you hold.

I have grudges and I hold them. I don't just nurse them: I feed them. I clothe them. I educate them. I brought my grudges with me from melancholy childhood into bitter manhood. I will drag them, limping, to my grave.

I know it is probably wrong, but when it comes to Ohio State football, that's what I do, and I like it.

I have an old grudge that has caused me to root against Ohio State every single time they play. I would root for the Red Army team against Ohio State, if they ever played each other, if there were still a Red Army team, if there were still a Red Army.

So this morning, I am giddy with joy, since the Buckeyes lost the National Championship game last night, though saying they "lost" is an understatement along the lines of Noah saying, "Gee, it looks like rain!" Ohio State lost to the University of Florida, 41-14, in a game that was not as close as that. Florida spotted OSU seven points on the opening kickoff, and then proceeded to pound them 41-7 over the remainder of the evening, alternatively passing them, running them, beating them, and kicking them silly.

OSU coach Jim Tressell, who some think has the ethics of an abortionist, was humiliated, and their overrated Heismann Trophy winning quarterback Troy Smith (who is as likely to make it in pro football as Rosie O'Donnell is to sing Panis Angelicum for Pope Benedict) was throttled all night by a marauding Florida defense that sacked him repeatedly and shut down all aspects of his game.

The real story behind the game is one that was missed all season by the national and local media: the Big 10 really was a pathetic conference this season (2-5 in the bowls and lucky to do that), and their top teams were thoroughly untested in their non conference schedules. No one in the media ever picked this up, preferring instead to go on about how great OSU and Michigan were, how unstoppable Smith was, OSU and Michigan are the two best teams in the country, blah, blah, without ever noting that they really played weak competition -- OSU played okay Texas and Michigan teams and no one else; Michigan lost to the only good teams they played and whooped an okay Notre Dame team. A steady diet of mediocre Mid-American Conference teams and a conference schedule of sorry Indianas does not temper champion steel.

It's hard to give the experts much credence when they can go four months without ever even alluding to such facts. They all read each other columns and heard each other's TV spots and bought the same, rotten bill of goods. With that level of analysis, they might as well play the game with no sound. These guys just sit around in a group grope agreeing with each other, telling each other how smart they are, like Hollywood self-congratulation awards dinner where they take turns giving phony awards to each other so it is almost always their own turn to be told how they great they are.

So the loss gives me double pleasure, since it both exposes media prima donnas and vindicates what I have argued all season long: that OSU was drastically overrated and that the Big 10 was a sadly weak conference.

The bottom line is this: OSU is a good team who last night looked really rusty and out of sync. But they were not that good to start with and were, in any event, outcoached, outprepared, and outplayed. FLA was clearly better, and there should be no Buckeye griping or moaning about long layovers or hurt players. They got whooped by a much better team.

And beyond that, at least in this corner of Youngstown -- where the green spring of recrimination flows eternally and the seething never ends -- there is unalloyed joy, as the Buckeyes bite the dust.