Decision making

I went through a long and rigorous process in 2006 of paring down who I was to affiliate myself with when football came round.  Go all in on my ancestral team, despite its foibles and embarrassments?  Load up on the wife’s team, then riding high in the polls and on the field alike? Or embrace the team I had grad-school ties to, the doormat of college football, the laughingstock of the SEC?

I did a lot of agonizing on whether I could legitimately claim Vanderbilt – it was my grad school, after all, and I left under somewhat ignominious circumstances after only three years – but ultimately, the logic I came up with was:

1) I did spend three years there, during which time I had at least as much legitimate collegiate experience as I had in four years of undergrad.  Indeed, from a day-to-day standpoint, far more than in undergrad – I had the card to swipe in vending machines, I had the Overcup right there on campus, I had SEC sports and team merchandise on sale at the mall, and – most of all – I had friends of my own.

2) I had the degree and the ring.  There was nothing that said they had to grant me the Master’s, but they did, and I walked, and it was the last time my dad saw me alive.  And ironically, I walked that day next to a former classmate from high school geometry, who I wouldn’t see or hear from again until she turned up fifteen years later on Facebook as a foreign service officer in the Ukraine. A lot of people washed out of that program and found their lives taking very different courses, I suppose.

3) I could have gone undergrad. Should have, in retrospect, but the only offer was 75% of tuition plus $2000/yr, and their admissions office had been decidedly indifferent.  They could afford to be, I suppose.  The other school rushed hell out of me and sent me mail every other day for two years and made me think they wanted me more than any other school had ever wanted anyone – right up until the moment I arrived.  Which makes it all the more ironic to remember that once I showed up on campus at Vandy, it felt like home from day one in a way no other place in my life ever did.

4) The things I learned at Vanderbilt – how to troubleshoot a Mac, why to order a Manhattan, and never sleep with anyone crazier than you are – are all things that have been critical to success in life ever since. I may not use the degree for anything but resume laundering, but the things I actually learned at Vanderbilt were absolutely critical in rebuilding my life in DC and thereafter.

Based on those criteria, I decided that I could, in fact lay legitimate claim to Vanderbilt as alma mater and sporting affiliation, and on those grounds I kicked my undergrad school down the black hole and dissociated myself with the Crimson Tide for everything not involving Auburn, Tennessee or a national championship. (And truth be told, I was only supporting them last year against LSU inasmuch as a Tide win would flush the BCS. I wanted LSU to actually win the title.)

That was six years ago this month. Since then, I’ve been rewarded with a Sweet Sixteen berth in 2007 and an SEC tournament title in basketball in 2012, not one but TWO bowl appearances in 2008 and 2011, including six wins both seasons, and a baseball team that’s no stranger to the rank of #1 in the country and has multiple assorted SEC titles and a College World Series appearance in 2011. Factor in some women’s titles in cross-country and basketball and a couple of Nobel Peace Prizes, several alumni gatherings, two live basketball games and a whole weekend series of baseball, and there you go…and then there’s the matter that I’ve become a little bit of a figure in Vanderbilt fandom.  Over 400 people follow my VU twitter and I get plenty of hits and comments when I post at AoG.  I made the decision to go in on Vanderbilt, embraced it, and it embraced me back.

There is an important lesson here, something about how you can decide for yourself who you want to be instead of letting the world make the decision and abiding by it, but I’m not sure I’ve fully learned it yet.  And even if I had, I’m not entirely sure I’ve got a good grasp on exactly who I want to be.

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