Kate's Take: The Morning After

  I'm going to guess that every single one of us woke up this morning with some mixed emotions. Disappointment over the loss, grogginess over the late start (At what point did 11 o'clock cease being the start of festivities and become only something I see when UK plays late?), and, more than likely, dread at the prospect of facing at least one person in your life. Sometimes its coworkers, sometimes a friend, sometimes family, but inevitably we all know someone who was going to make our lives miserable at least for one day by gloa  More than likely we brought it on ourselves. The high of being #1, undefeated, at the top of the basketball world was too much excitement to keep inside. We talked about it and bragged about it and, if we're honest with ourselves, were probably a little obnoxious about it. But it's like getting a girl pregnant, you may have contributed to the effects but that doesn't mean it's any less annoying. In fact, I'd wager we've all been the gloater before. Ever left a Facebook update about a game you didn't watch, featuring teams you don't care about? Gloater. Have you crawled over to a losing rival's message boards in hopes of instigating a four page long diatribe about how even though their program sucks, at least they do it "the right way"? Gloater. Does your phone bill double in size during a UL losing streak? Gloater (or maybe Sypher) So this is my pledge: Next time I want to gloat over another team's loss, I'll think about how it felt this morning, walking into work with my head hung down. How much I dreaded facing all the Purdue and Kansas and Indiana fans I had mocked and crowed to over the last few weeks. How it felt to listen to coworkers ask me about "that little guard" and being "cock blocked". I'll remember and then I'll treat them to the exact same joking and gloating that I've received and then some. Because let's face it, we're sports fans and it's what we do. We brag about our team's successes and gloat over rival's failures. And no matter how many times we're publically humiliated for predicting an undefeated season and certain eternal glory, we keep coming back for more. So how many of you encountered the dreaded rival gloater today? Complain away.