Toughness is just something you are as a person. You can’t focus on it. It’s just something you bring everyday because it’s an intrinsic part of you. If you have to worry about focusing on it, then that just says you aren’t tough…
Either way, as a guy who was raised as a MSU fan, it’s that kind of crap that makes me hate Sparty. MSU fans view the rivalry as an momentous clash of ideals upon which the world revolves. Michigan and MSU aren’t just teams and groups of people, they are allegories for life and struggle. A victory in the rivalry is validation that their “grit”, “toughness”, “humility”, and “hard work” have prevailed over those elitist arrogant Wolverines who’ve never had to work a hard day in their life and have everything handed to them on a silver plate without effort (even that acceptance letter of course). It validates their existence.
By contrast, when Michigan wins, I generally just think “Thank god, maybe they’ll shut the fuck up for a year.”
This x1000. I saw a comment on Facebook along the lines of “if I see a scUM fan walking through Breslin I will not hold back, I will treat them like the filth they are. This is war.”
It’s bizarre. If you hate a group of people because they went to a different college or root for a different team you have problems. Your entire comment is the best one I’ve seen summing this weirdness up. Absolutely perfect.
Izzo and Dantonio both fuel the fire with their hatred of Michigan. It is not that they hate to lose to us because we are rivals, they just hate everything about us.
It is not healthy and sometimes works against them.
They sort of want to have it both ways, calling Ann Arborites elitist and arrogant but also calling Michigan fans “Walverines.” According to my dad, statewide most working people traditionally supported Michigan, maybe as much because it seemed to rep the state in terms of stature and size (long-term success?). The class component of the thing is fascinating, as is the CLASS component; I loved Beilein’s comments about not bothering to hate MSU the other day, strikes the perfect note of generosity and disregard. Epitome of class, I thought.
I know, you tend to be pretty uncomfortable when the analysis strays in a sociological direction, Dylan. We need another thread or forum for it. But it’s not as though those dimensions don’t exist. Which reminds me, has the CBS mini-documentary [on Beilein] been posted here? Not a candidate for this thread, but darned interesting.
Toughness can absolutely be delevoped and worked on. I remember doing plenty of drills that strengthened our mental fortitude. I’m sure some people have an easier time with it based on life experiences or some intrinsic attitude, but you can focus on being developing “toughness”.
Welp, opened a can of worms I did. I posted Bridges’ comment here so we could discuss the identity of this team going forward into B1G play, partly because this team does seem to play with an edge on defense that we have not seen in the Beilein era… except maybe for the novak days. I also think that similar to the comments made after the Illini game last year, this may help galvanize the team going forward… so JB doesn’t have to rely on showing pictures of dog breeds to motivate the guys
