The fear of being the favorite

The graphic design program at my alma mater started in the early 80s with six students, two of which dropped out after the first semester.

It is now one of the largest graphic design programs between the Mississippi and the Rockies.

At a faculty show some years ago, I asked the art department head, who had started the graphic design program, whether it was a challenge to keep the good things from a department that university admins viewed as an afterthought, and which had a hermit crab-like existence moving from building to building as other departments outgrew them or got tired of them, now that it had found success.

In other words, how do you keep what made you successful once you’re successful?

Success, that thing we all are looking for in whatever we do—which we measure by different yardsticks, and which some of us are too unwilling to recognize in ourselves when we find it—can be a monster.

If Boston wins a championship this year, it will be under far different circumstances than when they punched Golden State in the nose, only to fall in three straight games as they apparently realized where they were at and lost their nerve. This year, assuming they get there, they will be the favorite. They will be expected to win.

What that means to the team can be discussed if and when we get to that point.

But I can tell you, as a fan, it’s a bit scary. It’s intimidating.

Photo by David L. Nemec/NBAE via Getty Images

You spend the years in which the C’s assembled, with a purpose, if not a plan, this team, cheering for a plucky upstart. For longtime Celtics fans, it was an odd place to be, and I think it soured some of them on the, for lack of a better word, process. Waiting for Jayson Tatum and Jaylemn Brown to mature when other players, whose maturity had come at the expense of some other fanbase’s frustrations, were available on the trade block has been taxing for some. But for myself and those of a similar mind, it’s been fun. When victories aren’t assumed, they’re a heckuva lot easier to enjoy.

And, of course, it was always fun to get mad when media voices made the outrageous takes that they’re paid to make (we need a German word like ‘schadenfreude’ for enjoying being mad, maybe ‘zornfreude’?)

But now? Things are different here. Winning is expected and every loss brings out fears of failure from fans.

Back to my alma mater. Their football team rolled over the best the FCS had to offer this past season. Yet I wasn’t as anxious as I am about this C’s team, and I think it’s because the Jackrabbits rolled. They were better than their opponents to an extent that just isn’t possible in the NBA these days.

There are scary players on the Pacers, and on the Mavs and Wolves. It’s extremely unlikely that the Pacers will come back, but the C’s aren’t so much better than the Pacers that I feel the outcome of any game is decided before the opening tip.

However, if and when the Finals come around, the C’s will have nearly all the experience on their side, regardless of opponent. And they have, as I occasionally forget, scary players as well.

Rather than fill me with confidence, all that does is make me worry. What if… What if… What if the Celtics aren’t as good as we think they are? What if Boston really can’t handle the pressure of the big stage? What if this team is an ‘all-but’ team, like the 80s Nuggets, or the 90s Jazz, or my beloved 1970s Vikings? How do you improve a team that’s better than 97% of the league?

And that’s just if they lose… On the flip side, there’s anxiety even if they win. What if they can’t sustain this? What if they just win one title, and all this waiting was just like the ‘86 to ‘08 gap? That was 22 years, this is 16, so what if this is it? And what if they do win more than one? How long can they keep this group together? If they can’t, how do they stay at this level?

Staff Photo By Matt Stone/MediaNews Group/Boston Herald

On another day, I wrote that what you say about other people often says more about you than it does them, and I’m not immune to this. My trepidation at Boston suddenly becoming ‘favorites,’ of adding a target to their back that matches the one on the front that says “CELTICS,” says that I’m a worrier by nature. And yes, I know that worrying about stuff is like sitting in a rocking chair. You move a lot, but you don’t go anywhere. But I’m old enough to know that there’s not much I can do about my worrying. Amusingly, I’m not too worried about how much I worry, and I’m not even sure I’d recognize myself if I wasn’t worrying about something. If it’s the Celtics I’m worried about now, well, it was something else before, and it’ll be something new afterward. What’s odd isn’t that I’m worrying, it’s that I’m worrying about Boston.

Nevertheless, that’s where I’m at. There was a lot less to worry about when the C’s were playing with house money, as it were, when they reached the ECF on the back of the unlikeliest of heroes, when Jaylen Brown was ridiculed for saying that LeBron was just a ‘regular guy’ to him.

Heck, it was easier to be a fan when the media started to move the goalposts with Jayson Tatum. If Tatum was doing X, then he should be doing Y. If he started doing Y, then why wasn’t he doing Z?

It was easy to see how foolish this was, and it made watching Tatum grow fun. Seeing people loudly state outrageous claims and then backpedal and disavow them, usually by making a different claim even more loudly, is, let’s be honest, a real treat.

But now, with doubters of the Celtics occupying an ever-shrinking patch of dirt, even as the number of obstacles to a title dwindle, I’m reminded of Plutarch’s Alexander the Great, who “wept, seeing as he had no more worlds to conquer.” Will winning paradoxically make it less fun to be a fan?

I suppose the only way to know is to find out. Let’s go, CELTICS!!