Legacy

That is the one word that most Michigan Wolverines try to rationalize out of their struggling football program.

The winningest program in football history.

Truth be told, I don't even believe half of the people who say that statement even followed Wolverine football back when they were strong and dominating. To that degree, I feel like whenever someone says something like that, they're just hiding behind a facade of past success.

For me, being a fan since when I first started following and watching football, it's gotten pretty lame hearing Michigan on the wrong side of the highlight reel, week after week. After an enthusiastic 4-0 start, we manage to drop the rest of our games (it got to the point, that the Delaware State game was nearly a necessity to prove that we were still worthy to play Division I football).

To me, "rebuilding year" is just another tack on the excuses and rationale for another losing season.

Rich Rod, it's time to pick up recruiting efforts, and develop the players we have. It's not that we don't have talent; we're not using them right. We're a strong rushing football team, whose running backs do in fact have the ability to catch screen passes. Try sprinkling that into your playbook more if they're loading the box and stuffing the run.

Oh, and by the way, can we pick up some high ranked linebackers? I'd like to stop seeing people run all over us. Maybe convince Lamarr Woodley to come back and show people how to get the job done on defense.

Bubbles

The WashU bubble.

I've heard this phrase, this simile, this phenomenon many times, but the meaning has changed:

Freshman year; I blew it off quickly as a mere philosophy to keep an open mind regardless of where you are. I was happy to get out of state, excitedly jumping into many new things, submerging myself into the new college campus, that couldn't possibly be more different from something as "isolating" as a bubble.

Sophomore year: I realized that it was more serious than what I initially thought as a freshman. It showed that outside of the WashU campus, there are many very real (and oh so very ugly) things that are happening around the world. The fact that it is hard for me to see these events merely shows the shielding effect that WashU has. The result? I have reverted back to reading the newspaper.

Junior year: Getting to know people even better, and going beyond simple surface level conversation, many attitudes, hidden from me before (or simply went unnoticed by me), now shown by people I care about, people I call good friends, close friends, really rang home for me. The state of being at WashU, what being a WashU student means, the definition of quitting, inner reflection, personal choices, the future- all things that I've NEVER needed to worry about, things that went unconsidered in light of extracurriculars and just school work. No longer am I swamped with said trivial matters.

As someone very close to me has told me before: "Book smarts and academia are merely the brick used to break the window of opportunity; people smarts and social skills are what give you the ability to seize the opportunity, once you hop through that window." I look back at my life, my experiences, my "career" thus far, and I realize that I am a poster child of the WashU Bubble, "shielded" from the latter two of the trifecta: "the Good, the Bad and the Ugly" of the real world.

Question

Is it bad to admit that nearly 95% of my success is a direct result of body stimulating drugs?