How Big Ten football helped me to overcome depression

It started toward the end of my senior year at Cary High School in Cary, NC. The circumstances are unsurprising, a bad breakup was the start of the troubles ahead of me. The difference was that I was prideful, I firmly believed (I still do) that showing too much emotion is weakness, but I went too far and deprived myself the natural healing process of a broken heart that occurs following a breakup. Before I knew what was happening, I had the symptoms.

Now, don’t get me wrong folks. I don’t want any pity, I’m just here to tell a good story. Heck, I didn’t even have clinical depression, just the kind you get that goes away if you don’t let it conquer you. I owe a debt to a lot of people who helped get me through that difficult time, family, old friends, new friends, and even a tortoise. But the one I owe the most to isn’t a person or an animal but something that has been near and dear to my heart ever since I was a child, the one thing that had the power to make me feel again if I let it.

College football.

I first took an interest in college football in 2005 as a fan of the Rutgers Scarlet Knights back in the old Big East Conference as it was my Dad’s school. It was kind of funny considering I come from the only state in the South where basketball is favored over football.

The Scarlet Knights won enough games that year to make it to the Insight Bowl in Phoenix, Arizona, their first bowl game in decades where they lost to the Arizona State Sun Devils. But it wasn’t until the 2006 season that I became aware enough of what was happening that I got truly hooked.

You see, the thing that gives college football its unique persona is the drama, high stakes, and unpredictability.  All it takes is one. One loss kills your National Title hopes. One drive can win a game. One play can turn a ship around, or sink a powerhouse. There’s the statue of liberty play that Boise State pulled against Oklahoma to win the Tostitos Fiesta Bowl, the game winning Auburn field goal return in the Iron Bowl against Alabama that left the college football world in awe. I live for that kind of heart pounding suspense. Few feelings beat singing your team’s fight song with the rest of the crowd after a dramatic end to a pivotal game.

The 2006 Rutgers Football season was full of its fair share of drama. It held the instant classic of modern Rutgers football when the Scarlet Knights upset the 3^rd ranked Louisville Cardinals after they rallied in the second half and won on a last minute field goal. The video of field goal kicker Jeremy Ito sending the ball through the uprights, and then pointed to the camera as fans stormed the field was forever etched in my mind.

In 2008, I also became a fan of the Texas A&M Aggies, where my brother decided to go to school. Rutgers was still my #1 team, but I  rooted for the Aggies just as hard. This lead to my attendance at the 2012 Chick-fil-A Bowl where Johnny Manziel led a titanic comeback effort to lift Texas A&M over the Duke Blue Devils on New Years Eve. It culminated in the crowd and the team counting down the New Year and singing Auld Lang Sine. It was the greatest football game I had ever seen in person until the 2015 Big Ten Championship.

I remained a Rutgers fan though, it’s now 11 years going on 12, but they’re not the ones who brought me back.

You see, when I first stepped on the campus of the University of Iowa, I had come there with the idea that going to college far, far away from anyone I knew would give me a clean slate to start with. It was true for the most part, but you can’t just get rid of memories. So, every now and again, I’d sink and find myself enveloped in that feeling of melancholic hopelessness that nibbled away at me over the summer.

I bought student season tickets to the Iowa Hawkeye’s 2014 Football season, there was never any doubt as to whether I would or not. From what I’d seen through my years of watching the sport, I knew that striped game bibs were a Big Ten tradition, so I snatched one up as soon as I could. It was my school, I was going to root hard for them.

The first game that year was against the Northern Iowa Panthers, a team in FCS, the second tier of Division I football.  I came into that game somewhat worried, Northern Iowa is typically one of the better teams in FCS after all, but I didn’t quite care yet. I had just gotten here, I’d yet to become attached.

The games ended up working as an escape for me. When I was sitting in the stands cheering with the rest of the student section, my thoughts were quiet, I was completely absorbed with the game before me. I’d trudge my way through the week, feeling that sinking feeling and letting my mind wander places where I didn’t want it to go. Then Saturday would roll around, and I’d find myself free from it all for a few hours.

Eventually, I’d make myself go “ultimate fandom” for my school, adopting the title of “Captain Iowa” in time for the Cyhawk game against Iowa State. I started printing out a black and gold “I” to duct tape to my chest every game which I’d write the score on later and tape to my wall. I’d buy a flag to tie around my neck and use as a cape. Heck, I even bought a morph suit, although I found out later how inconvenient they are when you need to use the restroom. The “Captain Iowa” getup helped me to immerse myself deeper into the fantasy, deeper into the magic of game day. To be less me at the time, and more this ultimate fan persona.

I attended every game from that point forward in my “Captain Iowa” getup (and still do to this day.)

We lost to Iowa State after a poorly timed timeout gave them a second chance at a game winning field goal. As any Iowa fan will tell you, the 2014 season went downhill after that. We finished the regular season with tough losses to Nebraska and Wisconsin, and then proceeded to get throttled by Tennessee in the Taxslayer Bowl to end with a disappointing record of 7-6.

I was sitting in a café area on the club level of Everbank Field, worn out from sitting in the Florida sun all day, feeling that sullen, heartbroken calm that comes over you after a grand disappointment in the world of sports.

I was taken out of the immersion, the fantasy was over until next year, but I still felt it all. I hated how the season ended, all I wanted in those moments was for something within the Hawkeyes’ coaching staff to change. Steps needed to be taken to bring this program to the top, I had thought to myself, this is unacceptable. Then, I realized something.

I cared.

In allowing college football to provide an escape from my demons, it ended up doing far more. Over the course of the months that made up the first semester of my Freshman year of college, I was slowly conditioned to feel again.