They play basketball in Montana???

Losing to 12th seeded Montana in the first round of the 2006 NCAA tournament will go down as one of the biggest disappointments in my sports fandom life. I sat in disbelief as we rarely created offense, played zero defense and got thoroughly out-played by a silly Big Sky team from Montana. Montana? Where's that? Is that a State?

The loss was then punctuated by my nemesis, who sent me the following email:

Normally I would just send you a smug smiley face, but...after our
conversation I actually changed my brackets on your recommendation and had
Nevada beating Montana. Now I know it doesn't really matter, because I
think BC will win the next round, but I only lost two games today, and YOU are
the reason I lost one of them.

This got me thinking about other sports disappointments I've felt over the years. The first that comes to mind is the 2001-02 Western Conference Finals featuring my Sacramento Kings against the evil Los Angeles Lakers. We technically lost the series 4-3, but I think we really won six of the seven games.

I threw up at the end of Game 4 when Robert Horry hit the game winning shot at the buzzer. I literally threw up, right there in the living room. The shot went in and the lunch came out. I was despondent. And we all know the refs gave the Lakers games six and seven.

The Rose Bowl this year was the same way. Fortunately I have better coping mechanisms, so I didn't throw up when Vince "Wonderlic" Young scored the game winning touchdown. It was a slow walk home from Bailey's that night, though. And I replayed much of the game in my head laying wide awake in bed the next couple of nights, but slowly got past it. I'm okay with it now. Fight On!

I'm sure there are others, but those would probably be my Top 3.

But I'll always have October 15, 2005: 4th and 9, ball on our own 26 yard line. 80,000 screaming fans. No problem. Fight On!

I hereby declare October 15 to be FIGHT ON! DAY, a day I remember the tough, chiseled heroics of men like Leinart, Bush and Carroll.

g.