Dooglosers

We need to face it someday and now is as good a time as any. Whether we like it or not, UW's football fans and boosters are all now locked-in as perennial overcharged and undervalued dooglosers. We started down this road 11 years ago in Summer 2003 and here we are once again in 2014 with a three game home losing streak against Pac-12 elites Stanford, ASU, and UCLA to go with the obligatory blowout loss to Oregon in Eugene. Deja vu all over again. No glory of an upset victory that might have warmed our Dawg hearts this Winter, just more predictable losing in a roll-over, rub my belly doogloser way.

The 2014 season that started with so much hope now just seems stupidly familiar to past seasons of renewal in 2003, 2005, and 2009. What goes around comes around with a new coaching staff, new hope, and same ole underperforming garbage presented to us on the Husky Stadium turf as at most puppy barf and at the very least an insult. We all know it must be cleaned up somehow, but who's going to do that? But sitting in Husky Stadium on game days in a stupor induced by poor to mediocre football performed by the home team isn't all that makes us dooglosers. There's more give or take who and what we are:

Last Saturday afternoon was near perfect weather for November at Montlake and Tailgater's crew had one of our all-time best tailgate parties, certainly our best since forced to move to Lot E-1A. A large group of family and friends showed up, including many we hadn't seen since we were displaced from E-11 by a very ugly looking subway station. Three hours of great food and beverage, including a gas engine powered blender making special recipe Margs. It was comfortable and super fun, but no pregame talk of football, Huskies or Bruins. We have learned how to lose and enjoy it without football even before the damned thing is kicked off;

Once in my seat, I could feel a little bit of a traditional Husky crowd ready for something special, but that mood changed some when the fireworks started going off and I had a sense of being back in Boise at a minor league baseball event. The entry of the teams onto the field sent me further all the way to Provo where BYU in Nike fashioned white helmets and white pants came out of the tunnel to take on the mighty Bruins of UCLA. Before I could snap back to doogloser reality, we had been heavily punched in the face 14-0;

Whether or not UCLA might have been ripe for an upset, we of course can never know and I doubt that many who watched UW's pups perform once again out-of-sync with major college football ad infinitum...... actually cared. Loser football by definition is after all lacking in that something which is always needed to induce euphemism and fanaticism in any home crowd. Many may go to the Zone to find what they can't get from the football inside the stadium, but not I. Nor can I go for a convenient cold beer where my tailgate used to be in E-11 now occupied by that damn subway station. So, I like any well-programmed doogloser sit in my seat for the entire halftime watching a thoroughly boring Husky Band performance that otherwise couldn't get me to cross the street (would you please come home, Bill Bissel?);

Finally, the game's over with the losing score an unsurprising UW-30, UCLA-44, and it's time to walk back to E-1A for the post-game party. Perhaps for the first time, I notice as I walk through the concourse, outside the stadium, and up Montlake Blvd to our tailgate that there's no head-hanging, inner reflection, or discussion on what had happened in the game. Everybody seems relaxed, content, and even happy for after all, there's life after defeat which has become too familiar. What more validation as dooglosers do we need?

At the postgame party, everybody including visitors that came to the pregame tailgate have returned and it's a larger than usual group. There's plenty of food and beverage and the Marg blender never runs out of gas. Only one thing seems to be mostly missing, however, and thank God that's any serious talk about the poor excuse for football we had just spent 3 hours watching. No complaints that I heard about how flat the Huskies were in losing a fourth Pac-12 game nor about the poor tackling or lack of offensive blocking. It was simply a group of 30 or so friends brought together again by Husky Football, but without the football;

For those who stick around postgame tailgating in Lot E-11 until the traffic backup diminishes, you are aware that a group of Husky Band members wander through the lot performing for fun and leisure. Just as we were packing up the tailgate preparing to leave, the band kids came over to cut loose in rousing fashion on the traditional Husky music that used to get us so pumped up in Husky Stadium, on road trips, and in the Rose Bowl on New Years Day. No-one could help noticing how much fun the band students in their street clothes were having just playing the music that turns all Huskies on.... and that of course is what Bill Bissell intended. Glory, Husky spirit, and fun all go together, but not in Husky Stadium when Pac-12 elites visit.

It's been ten years now and those of us who have stuck around along with much valued newcomers are fully indoctrinated dooglosers now. We have learned what it's like to be coogloosers, Beavs, and duckf....rs and it doesn't suit our traditional arrogance, at least not for me. I worry more and more these days about whether or not we will become the nasty little jerks all of our PNW cousins are should Husky Football ever get good again as it once was in another time and universe. We certainly seem to have the fashion and trappings of losing down pat. As I was leaving Mill Creek yesterday for the trip back to Boise, my two sons with whom I share the cost of Husky Football said to me: "The season tickets are too expensive for the football value we're getting." I know what they're thinking and change to that 12 thing may be coming soon.