Battered fan and Buffalo native Julian Williams tells the tale of his city’s enamoring athletic despondence.
Battered fan and Buffalo native Julian Williams tells the tale of his city’s enamoring athletic despondence.
The Bills lost their starting quarterback, J.P. Losman, for a few weeks this season due to injury. First-round draft pick Paul Posluszny is gone for the season with a broken forearm, and this is our first season in five years without Nate Clements, arguably one of the best cornerbacks in the game. The Sabres let go of two key players over the off-season, co-captains Daniel Briere and Chris Drury. Briere and Drury were considered by many fans to be the hearts of the team that were quintessential in Buffalo reaching the Conference Finals the past two years.
In short, it appears as if more troubling times lie ahead for the city of Buffalo.
To say that a city’s sports teams are cursed may be a little drastic. But what else is there left to do when continually getting close and falling short becomes your M.O.?
Personally, I feel as if there is no curse in Buffalo, just a long series of unfortunate moments. These events have, in turn, produced a negative stigma regarding the city and its teams. I’d like to call them coincidences, really. Coincidences can go away. Curses seem much more permanent and malignant.
On the upside, these coincidences have also produced two significant positive outcomes: pride and unity.
No matter how bad things get, Buffalo sports fans will always fiercely defend their teams, and we are united in doing so. We’ve had unfortunate things happen to our teams, but we’ve had them together. Emhof’s quote above could not have been truer: There are no bandwagon Buffalo fans. We’re in it for the long haul.
So what’s my advice to other Buffalonian college students? Wait. Be patient. Take the hits and show pride. So when it comes, and it will, it’ll be completely worth it.
As Switzer puts it, “We may not frequently make it to the very top, but what we have done is extremely respectable and magical at points, which builds a character of a fan that is rarely seen. So people who speak poorly of Buffalo usually are just unaware of the fact that we don’t necessarily need to be the best in order to be proud of our city and its teams.
Julian Williams, Music Editor
My name is Julian Williams and I'm ImprintMagazine's Music Editor and contributing writer. I started writing for Imprint in October of 2007 and have been hooked on the site and helping to develop the site ever since. Now that the formalism is out of the way, here's the the real situation: I love music. I love everything about music. I love finding new bands or listening to new tracks from both major artists and independent artists. My favorite acts (as of now) are: Wu-Tang Clan, Bob Dylan, The Coup, LCD Soundsytem, The Mars Volta, Simian Mobile Disco, Wilco, Murs, Radiohead, Charlie Hunter, and The RH Factor. I like hip-hop, trip-hop, alternative, progressive rock, jazz, acid jazz, soul, funk, experimental, electronic, drum and bass, and downtempo. If you give me a name, I'll probably know who you are talking about.
Julian has written 7 article(s) for iMPrint. Find other articles by Julian Williams, Music Editor.
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