With Penn State Doomed to Choke, I Did What I Had To Do

I stopped watching. Yep, that's right. I am referencing this past Saturday's NCAA Women's Volleyball National Championship, pitting #1 seed Stanford vs #3 seed Penn State in Sacramento, CA. As you know from Steely's earlier post moments after the final kill, Penn State pulled out a thrilling victory. The Nittany Lions won 3-2 (30-25, 30-26, 23-30, 19-30, 15-8), finishing the season at an astounding 34-2 and on a 26 match winning streak. Penn State lost only 18 games all year. They played 126. They won 85.7% of their games and 94.4% of their matches. It's safe to say they were a great team. The Nittany Lions only match defeats came versus Nebraska, the #2 seed (30-2) in the tournament, during the Cornhuskers Labor Day Tournament, and Stanford, the #1 seed, during the Yale Classic two weeks later. This team dominated the lesser opponents and captured their fifth consecutive Big Ten Championship.

Anyway, I couldn't follow the team throughout the year since I'm in Boilermaker Nation Region City Field and away from Nittany Lion Country. I knew they were good and routinely checked gopsusports.com for match updates (I would have watched them online but streaming using the apartment internet is, to put it nicely, useless). So stats and recaps would have to do. And they did. Until the National Championship. Yay ESPN2! We get that!

Click on image to enlarge.

Kelly and I turned the game on while we finished up at the gym. We left after a few points in the first game (Penn State was losing). After I showered, I turned on the match but left the room to check my email and read the remarkable posts on Sports Fountainhead. I could hear the announcers in the background saying Penn State had taken Game 1 and was leading Game 2. Pleased to hear this, I continued lazily scouring the internet. I returned to watch the National Championship at the end of Game 2, with the game all but sealed and a reassuring 2-0 lead over #1 Stanford. Sweet. But that's when things got ugly.

Like McDonati, I'm a superstitious person. While I know it is complete and utter crap, I always convince myself that what I am doing is hurting the team/individual. Watching Penn State struggle to do anything offensively in Game 3 was starting to pull at those superstition threads. But they didn't convince me so I continued to watch as Penn State handed Stanford point after point on miscommunication errors. They looked oddly confused and out of place. This continued through Game 4. I knew it was me. I had to stop watching. I hadn't watched all year. They were 33-2 in matches I didn't watch. The had played 121 games and won 105 of them. But the little I watched of Game 1 in the gym and all of Games 3 and 4, they looked bad. It was me. Had to be.

So I did what superstitious fans would do. I stopped watching. Game over. I didn't want to do this to Penn State; to those girls that had worked so hard. Penn State hadn't won a meaningful Championship since...1999? The last Women's Volleyball Championship team (apologies again to the gymnastics, fencing, and rugby squads)? Maybe. This needed to happen. TV off. Time for bed.

I wake up 30 minutes later and check the gopsusports.com. "2007 National Champions". IT WORKED! I stopped watching and they returned to their dominating form! WE WIN! WE WIN!

Click on bracket to enlarge.

Do I actually believe me not watching helped them win? Eh. They were a great team with a lot of talent. The announcers continually mentioned how many of them would probably be on the USA squad in the 2012 Olympics. A few maybe even in Beijing in 2008. This team won because they were the best team. But these events and this outcome will keep me wondering. And won't dampen my sports superstitions.