Not so bad, not so good, an ode to mediocrity

As the school year is (finally) winding down, I’d like to take this opportunity to give a toast to mediocrity.

I’m talking about the average player or team that shows up to every game looking to be the best but ultimately ending up in the middle of the pack. Doesn’t get too high or too low—just inconspicuously situated at the center of the standings. Not so bad that a fan wants to complain about it, but not so good that the average fan wants to hop on the bandwagon either.

Do you ever feel like we have too many Columbia teams like this? I know I do.

I don’t want to discount what many of our teams are doing here because we do have some outstanding athletes in tennis, fencing, swimming, and archery—just to name a few. But when it comes to the big three of football, basketball, and baseball, it just seems to me that we are the pinnacle of mediocrity.

You see this kind of thing in the pros all the time—teams that are good enough to get by but are never thought of as serious contenders. Take the NFL’s Houston Texans for instance. In five of the last seven years, the team has won six, seven, or eight of 16 games. Only once were they severely under .500, when they won just two games. And the lone season they had more wins than losses, the victories stopped at nine. It seems like every August NFL commentator talks about how “this could be the year the Texans break out of it and become competitive!” We’ll probably hear it yet again before this season—that is, if the owners and players come to a new labor agreement—but based on the track record, it’s hard to think that we’ll see any different results.

Moving over to basketball, it’s much easier to find those teams stuck in the middle because the league is so clearly divided between the “haves” and the “have-nots.” However, the league is structured so that even those teams mired in the depths of mediocrity have a good shot at making the playoffs—especially in the Eastern Conference. Look at the Philadelphia 76ers—they are a perfect example of how a very average team can get by in the NBA. Since head coach Larry Brown’s resignation following the 2002-2003 season, the 76ers have made it to the playoffs four times and only once had a record above .500. (It’s worth noting that in ’08-’09 and this season, the 76ers were exactly 41-41.) Add the fact that the NBA free agency has now become a “make your own All-Star team” event, and the result is the always-average 76ers, who are never bad enough to get high first-round draft picks.

The mediocrity train rolls right on into Major League Baseball, where it finds the Toronto Blue Jays. Canada’s lone MLB team has been “just OK” since winning the World Series in the consecutive seasons of ’92 and ’93. Since then, the Jays have finished the season in third place a staggering nine times, fourth four times, fifth thrice, and second only once. Because they’re in a division with the Yankees and Red Sox, which have dominated the AL East for the last 15 years (if there are any Rays fans, yes you won twice too), I find their mediocrity pretty understandable.

But you know what? All that doesn’t mean that we as Columbians should have to like mediocrity or as fans should have to put up with it. I think it’s pretty safe to say that we’re a community of people who have always been at least above the average level of those around us. Otherwise, how in the world would we have been admitted here? Joe or Jane Shmoe from high school could probably never do what you’ve been doing to stay afloat here at Columbia because, as the name suggests, he or she is just average.

Now, I know we’re in the middle of an Ivy baseball season where yours truly said the Lions had a lot of potential, and we’re just not seeing it come to fruition. Is that disappointing? Sure. Is it a little bit harder knowing that our basketball team did a very similar thing to us this past winter? Yeah, probably.

But the thing is that it’s not like these athletes aren’t working hard and giving it everything they’ve got. And even if we do end up in the middle of the pack for baseball, football next fall, and again with basketball next winter, we’ve still got to be proud of those among us who put on the Light Blue uniform and represent our university.

So Columbians, let’s raise our glasses in a toast to the Texans, 76ers, Blue Jays, and, of course, the Lions.

Myles Simmons is a Columbia College freshman.
sports@columbiaspectator.com