Last summer I made the adult decision to become a season ticket holder for The Columbus Crew. At the time of the purchase Columbus was one of the best teams in the league and I was buying a ticket from a scalper for every home game. It seemed like a logical choice. Fast forward to March of this year. The season starts off poorly. I’m unable to go to games for a number of reasons: Lumberjack, formals, lack of gas money to go to Columbus and back to Wooster for one night.
May arrives and I’m home for the summer, I go to more games, but the team is unable to put together any sort of positive momentum. We deal our best goal scorer because of a locker room feud. Our back line gets decimated from injuries, yet I and the majority of fans still believe things will pick up and we will sneak into the playoffs.
A couple new signings show up. We find ourselves with one of the best goal scorers in the league all of a sudden in Ola (the other) Kamara, and the defensive back line is unable to stop anything. Harambe dies, and we never win again.
That has been the season so far. Little to no positives. The team will not make the playoffs and I feel as if I wasted my money. I received the email last week about renewing my ticket for the 2017 season. I won’t renew. Mainly because I’m not 100 percent sure I’ll be in Columbus next year, but also because expectations are only worth so much.
When I bought season tickets last year I felt great about the future of the club and myself. Another year in Columbus was going to be great. All Crew and more of the fun I was having. Unfortunately that hasn’t been the case. Taking summer classes and working has really cut into any sort of stereotypical summer fun, the one bit of enjoyment I was counting on, Crew games, has been abysmal.
Not to say I’m not happy, I enjoy my job and am satisfied I’m going to get out of the credit deficit I’ve been in since spring of '14. The lesson here is not to look forward to on one thing and one thing only. Being he sports fan I am though makes this hard.
I’ve talked about how bad the Reds have been, but that has been expected. The Crew, this was supposed to be a summer of more goals and wins. So where does this leave me? Looking forward to a Blue Jackets team that has been historically awful, and hoping the Pacers can knock off the vaunted Cavilers. Neither of those teams I think will make any noise this fall and winter but I have no choice to look forward to them.
It is in these times I am jealous of my friends that go to big state schools, and it is for one reason and one reason only, college football season. I loved my time as Fighting Scot football player and I’m forever thankful of the two years and two tackles I registered, but last fall in Chicago I got to watch unlimited college ball with a bit of new found freedom and fondness.
When I played football it was easy to hit an over saturation point of the sport, and maybe that’s an indicator I wasn’t cut out for it but after a full week of football the last thing I wanted to do at the end of week was watch it. Last fall though, I couldn’t get enough of it. Jumped on every Big Ten bandwagon I could and stayed up late for random Pac 12 match ups that went on till two in the morning. Not having an allegiance mad me the best fan and worst fan at the same time. I could not be let down by what I saw, and after a summer full of let downs by Crew soccer, I’m looking forward to not caring so much.
