On Badger Pride

Badgerland is deflated. Forlorn. How does one deal with this loss?

Seemingly by reasserting their pride. Take a look at Twitter, through chats that you may have had with Wisconsin alumni, or at the top of your Facebook news feed. There’s an overwhelming outpouring of the word pride or proud. It has become the default and required assertion. But why?

Pride defined states “a feeling or deep pleasure or satisfaction derived from one's own achievements, the achievements of those with whom one is closely associated, or from qualities or possessions that are widely admired”. Let’s give the benefit of the doubt and say that most people aren’t prideful right now because of their own achievements. I loathe the idea of “we did it!” The fan in almost all circumstances has done nothing, outside of a new age belief that some sort of spiritual energy exists, that it can be good or bad, and that these good vibes can sway people and events consciously or unconsciously. I’m not opposed to that idea; mindfulness of this sort has been shown to be beneficial. This is personal however, and the notion that mindfulness of the self can sway events in the world is due skepticism, more so considering the Badger loss (what, you helped them get this far by supporting the players in thought and the university through mass consumption of their trademarked goods and you’re proud of it?).

For the second, it’s possible that one might be content with second best, proud that the Badger players made it to the national championship round at all. Here, the proud Badger isn’t wrong in their pride. In a tournament where one must win six games in a row against presumably increasingly challenging opponents, five isn’t bad at all. It’s quite good actually! Part of me wants to say no one wants to be second best, but that’s a very negative view of the whole affair which I will put aside and let other backseat pundits (like myself) play with.

Continuing with the definition however presents us a conundrum. How does one feel “a deep pleasure” in this sort of circumstance? To my understanding pleasure is difficult to merit in this circumstance. The Badger team with which Badger fans identify have failed while at the cusp of greatness. How can one be pleased with that?

Often the phrasing of these cries of pride are hedged with “but I’m still…” The language seems internally combative, as if there is reason to not be prideful in this circumstance. It suggests that the Badger fan isn’t always proud of achievement, but in this particular circumstance they’re proud despite lack of achievement. This would negate our definition or pride, and it’s possible that the definition above is inadequate, but for the sake of my play here, I’ll remain with this definition despite this possible contradiction in Badger pride.

Moreover, the “but I’m still…” suggests there are people who will lose their fandom and identity attachment at the moment of failure and hardship. Do these people actually exist? The much maligned bandwagon fan that only ever associates with winners? I haven’t ever met such a person. It would be incredibly awkward for one to explain themselves in way that would allow them to get away with such a thing given the social stigma of such a betrayal of the credo of fandom, the marriage contract among teams and supporters that “thou shall support one team through thick and thin.” Whether the merits of this sort of fandom have any value is up for debate, but not hear. I’ll briefly say that this seems to fall in line with a lot of other Western normative values, which we may not need and do at times hurt people who find themselves drawn to other ways of non-normative fandom.

For the final part of the definition, the prideful Badger fan may hold narrativization of the events and actors on the basketball court includes that the play displays positive qualities they wish to remain associated with. This possible reason for pride merits further analysis if we’re to be quite literal about it. The Badger basketball players are doing things on the court of semiotic merit. Repeated success of passes, post moves, shooting stances, these all might be functional for the purpose of success at the sport, but may connote ideas and emotional reactions that go beyond “basketball, yeaaaaah!” My ability to informatively speculate about whether Frank Kaminsky’s post game reads tenacious or gritty is based solely on limited experiences viewing the sport with others or listening to commentators who are paid to divine meaning out of spectacle (which is to say, their bias is noticed). These connotations, social constructed, would benefit from research and analysis of a more formal sort.

Suffice it for now that it’s possible that Badger fans are proud to associate their identities with a collective that displays positive characteristics publicly through sport. Moreover, they display them well, openly, and often, all of which bears admiration. Yet, the timing of this assertion of pride is once again significant. The Badger players have been doing this all season and in seasons past, so why state the pride so openly just now. Also, I’d wager that other programs do very similar stuff, and thus is Badger pride not unique, yet stating “proud Badger” instead of just “proud” delimits the pride to just those qualities which might be understood by watching the Badgers. This is an act of fooling oneself into believing that they’re part of a particular community that upholds just values. “Badger pride” suggests that other teams and their fans lack the values that are being attributed to the Badger teams, and if the values that the Badgers convey are good and just, what does this leave fans of other teams?

These rhetorical questions are misleading, I know. There’s no reason that fandom, pride, and the attributes associated with identity need to be so dichotomous. But when we live in a world where people can struggle to find their way out of false dichotomies (gender, sexuality, for example), I feel assuaged in my somewhat snide condemnation.

Ultimately, pride in specifically the Badgers and at this particular time leads to questions. The statement of pride doesn’t easily match up with the dictionary definition upon examination. So let me cut the word play and get to what we probably know is going on here. Pride is the word that has been chosen by the community of fans to show solidarity among themselves as they attempt to cope with defeat and loss. Combined with the above analysis, pride suggests that their efforts as fans have merit regardless of the outcome, because they supported a team that displays values that the community believes are worthy of displaying. Socially manufactured pride is all the value they can muster after they lost out on intrinsic joy garnered from witnessing success by those within your imagined community. Pride is as much an attempt to focus on the potential good as it is defiance of the idea that their time could have been better spent elsewhere.

Pride is a misstatement of the experience of being a fan. I believe that the statement of pride in the Badgers could be reoriented towards the joy of times spent among friends and family, communing among each other regardless of quality of play or achievement. It would be a more accurate description of the true value that has been gained from the play of the Badger teams. Their efforts and the success they achieved gave cause for us to join together, share good food, drinks, and time all among one another.

So for this, thank you Badger players. You’ve given us something to talk about as we go about our daily tasks. You’ve provided an impetus for friends to get together and laugh and cheer. It’s arbitrary, in my eyes, that it’s the Badgers that have done this. Since the verb “thank” looks for an object to part thanks onto, I’ll thank you.