Repurposing

Dear Chicago Cubs, I am Breaking Up With You

(Written before they won it all)

As a life long fan of the Cubs, our relationship has been long and challenging. But if the Chicago Cubs do not win the World Series this year, for the first time since 1908, it’s over. I have put too much into this relationship for them to just continuously disappoint me. My friends have told me this is a bad relationship; I know it’s a bad relationship, and if they let me down once again this October, we are through.

I say this because being a sports fan is basically being in a relationship with your team. The thing about relationships is when they are bad, they have to end, or they will continue to suck the life out of one of the parties. So that is what I pledge to do. If the Cubs, my partner in the world of baseball, damage our relationship again, it is time to move on.

Being a sports fan and dating are the same. You may not believe me now but let me show you. Elizabeth Arthur says there are nine stages to a relationship and they are as follows.

Infatuation
Understanding the stage
Stages of disturbance
The opinion maker
The molding stage
The Happy stage
The stage of doubts
The sexual exploration or bust stage
The stage of complete trust

These same stages can be applied to my experience as a sports fan rooting for the Cubs.

1. The Infatuation Stage

This is the first stage in every new relationship. You meet someone new; it’s exciting, and you can see potential. You can’t stop thinking about them and make sure to not embarrass yourself in front of them. This stage often involves naively over looking flaws of the other person that can ultimately be the downfall of the relationship.

It was hard not to be infatuated with the Cubs coming into this year. The year before they had gone from last place in their division to making the playoffs a year later. Besides just the previous success and blossoming young talent that stacked the roster, the Cubs went out and spent money to get better in the off-season. Combined they spent around 300 million on three players they thought could get them over the hump. So it was difficult not to feel confident and hopeful that this could finally be the year they end the 108-year championship drought. I often found myself trying to fall asleep before the season began but having trouble because I could not stop thinking about what it would mean if the Cubs won it all. The team had the talent and I was infatuated with them from the start.

2. The understanding stage

This is the stage where infatuation goes from an idea to something tangible. Basically, you realize that the person you are infatuated with may also be infatuated with you. You figure out that what you feel about them is actually the same, or similar to how they feel about you.

This stage in sports is where you realize that how you feel about a team in the same way they feel about themselves. As I said, I was completely infatuated with this Cubs team, coming off a season where they were only four wins away from the World Series. They were great on paper, but when it came to the actually game, they were even better. They opened the season 25 and 6. This was where the Cubs and I entered to the understanding stage of our relationship. I thought they were going to be good and now they were. What I believed in them, they believed in themselves. This belief could be seen in the dominating fashion in which the team played and how much they seemed to enjoy the game and each other. The admiration I was giving them was being reciprocated with their play on the field. This is a fun stage of a relationship or a season, but it never lasts long enough with an eventual disturbance seemingly inevitable.

3. The stage of disturbance

This is the stage where things start to get complicated. While a new relationship may be blossoming, a small bump in the road can derail a bright future. You are still getting to know the other person, but life happens, and there is some minor disturbance that you have to decide if you are going to embrace or let it ruin something good.

This stage reminds me of the Cubs at another point at the beginning of this season. Coming into the season the Cubs were odds on favorite to win it all, but they were still the Cubs. So when an early disturbance came in the form of starting left fielder Kyle Schwarber tearing his ACL, faith in the team easily could have been lost. Tearing this ligament in his knee, an injury rarely seen in baseball ended his season 2 games after it started. This is the kind of disturbance that can end everything, like finding out your new girlfriend still texts her ex. Schwarber was the Cubs best hitter in the playoffs the year before and has the most raw-power of anyone on the team. But like with any relationship, you get to choose how you react to the adversity that faces you. I try to see the best in everyone and every situation, especially in relationships and sports. So I decided to remain hopeful in the Cubs trying to see the opportunity the new opening in left field provided for other members of the team to step up. I did not give up on the team, and they did not give up on themselves with the backups playing exceptionally. The team exceeded expectations, and I, nor the team did not let an early disturbance give up on our entire future with this Cubs season.

4. The opinion maker

This is the stage of the new relationship where you begin to form opinions on the other person. As the weeks pass, you start to know what to expect from each other. Based on these expectations, you start to make assumptions about the other person and the future of the relationship.

While this year’s Cubs and I have gone through every stage I will mention, this stage especially stands out to me. This is because through the Cubs play I have formed very concrete opinions. They are a great team, and after I saw them come from behind to beat the San Francisco Giants in the first round of the playoffs, I thought to myself that this team has to win it all. At that moment I formed an opinion that the Cubs are the best team and they should win the World Series. The problem with this stage of a relationship is that it almost always sets you up for disappointment. I say this because disappointment is defined as dissatisfaction from expectations not manifesting. By making these assumptions or opinions, we are setting ourselves up for disappointment if the other party is unable to fulfill our expectations for them. I am a very optimistic person and a lot of times the favorable opinions I make about teams and people can end up being misguided and lead to future problems. Hopefully, this year’s Cubs break that cycle and reinforce my opinion that they are the best team in baseball.

5. The molding Stage

By this stage, your expectations in your partner are set. The newly set expectations can lead to both partners trying to mold themselves to the expectations set by the other. This can be very subtle in some cases but undoubtedly happens in almost every relationship. You do something because you think it’s what they would want you to do and vice versa.

This connects well with the Cubs before Theo Epstein arrived a few years ago. Epstein is currently president of the Cubs and is a baseball god after breaking the Boston Red Sox’ 86-year World Series drought in 2004. Since he has been in the Windy City, he has built an incredible team, but before his arrival the Cubs as an organization were consistently mismanaged. The Cubs of the late 2000’s thought they could buy wins, so they spent exuberantly on guys like Alfonso Soriano and traded away young talent like future MVP, Josh Donaldson to acquire most established veterans. They made these splashy moves because they thought it was what the fans wanted, but all it led to was mediocrity. This is an example of how the molding stage can ruin a relationship because while the Cubs were caving to the fans desires of having a more exciting and well-known team, it did not translate to success, the fans only real desire. This is how the molding stage can be relationship breaking, especially when you consider that spending more money on players leads to higher tickets prices for the fans. Sometimes people try and be someone they are not, just like the Cubs did, and like that team, it doesn’t always work out.

Below is a photo of me, and disgraced politician Rod Blagojevich watching those late 2000 Cubs achieve incredibly expensive mediocrity before he went to jail.

6. The Happy Stage

This is a stage of a relationship you can only get to if you have successfully navigated the first five. This is the stage where the relationship cruises smoothly along, and both parties are happy. This is usually a stage, at least in my experience that you do not realize you were in until it is over. But when it is happening, it’s the best. You feel like you and your partner are the perfect match and the possibilities for the future are endless.

This is how I hope to feel about the Cubs after the playoffs and hopefully a World Series win. I will admit that things are pretty happy right now between the Cubs and me, but winning the World Series would surely lead to endless bliss, a tremendous weight off the cities shoulders. Even at 20, I write this honestly scared my entire lifetime could go by without the Cubs reaching the summit. Irrational, yes, but they are the lovable losers for a reason. The Blackhawks are the only Chicago sports team to win a championship in my lifetime, unless you count the Bulls winning when I was 1 with Michael Jordan or the White Sox winning the World Series in two thousand whatever, who cares, it’s the White Sox. So having one of my teams, that I have rooted for since before I can remember win it all would pause our relationship in the happy stage indefinitely.

Here is a photo of my dad and I flying the W at a playoff game this fall, a ritual many Cubs’ fans partake in after a win. Hopefully, we will get to continue to fly the W for the rest of the year when the Cubs manage to break the curse and bring a championship back to Chicago.

7. The Stage of Doubts

This is a later stage where doubts start to creep into the relationship. Sometimes it is not certain what these doubts arise from, but usually, there is an event or series of events where the relationship begins to crack. You start questioning how happy you are in the relationship. You compare it to ones you have had in the past and relationships of other couples you see around you. A relationship can survive these doubts, but to do so they need to be communicated, and usually things need to change.

Stage seven has been the Achilles heel of my relationship with the Cubs any time they play well in the regular season. Maybe it stems from 108 years of losing or recent heartbreaking defeats in 2003 and 2008. This had lead to so much disappointment that I find my occasionally doubting the strength of what the Cubs and I have. When they come out and dominate to start the season, I find myself in lust over the success and potential of the team. But at the same time, I find myself trying to hold back. I don’t want to dive into the deep end with the Cubs because every time I have before the deep end has been full of rocks and sharks. Instead, I try and ground my expectations, dipping a toe in before even thinking about committing more. Just as with relationships with another person, if there is deep hesitation to commit fully, it usually means the relationship is destined for turmoil. Up to this year that has been my relationship with the Cubs, full of hope, but destined for tears.

8. The Sexual Exploration or Bust Stage

This is one of the last stages of a relationship, and it dictates whether a couple is ready to take that final step or not. While the name of this stage is pretty provocative, I take this stage to mean the relationship as a whole keeps evolving. As apposed to stagnating and continuing to do the same things that you have done before, do you try new things? To be successful, a relationship must continue to grow and change over time. Stagnation and indifference mean death.

While this stage is overarching and has strengthened or broken my relationships with all the teams I have rooted for over the years, this year’s Cubs provide another good example. What this means in sports is that when your team is successful, do they try to be better than they are at the moment, or are they content with staying at the level of play they are at currently. This year the Cubs exploded out of the gates to start the season to become one of baseball’s best teams. While having the best record in the league, the Cubs were still buyers at the trade deadline spending money and trading for players in an attempt to get better. I loved this because it felt like they were reinforcing to me that they were as committed to me in our relationship as I was to them. While I was ecstatic with how good they were playing, I wanted them to get better, and that’s exactly what they did. If they had not done anything to get better during the season, I think their level of play would have plateaued, as would my faith in them. Instead, our relationship has continued to evolve and strengthen.

9. The Stage of Complete Trust

This is a happy stage where partners both love and trust each other completely. They know what their relationship is and they know where it’s going. At this stage, it can be easy to start taking the other person for granted, but usually, a relationship that reaches this stage is one that will last for a while.

For the last time, I will again use this year’s Cubs because this is the current state of our relationship. The Cubs are currently seven wins away from winning the World Series. They have had a magical season and are close to doing something they haven’t done since 1908. Because it has been so long, it is impossible to take the scope of this moment and this team for granted. I am in it for the long haul, but at the same time know I could soon face complete and utter disappointment. The kind of disappointment where you feel hopeless. The kind of disappointment that can end relationships.

Dear Chicago Cubs, I am Breaking Up With You

This is how I started the essay and what I should do if the Cubs don’t hold up their end of our relationship, but I can’t. The thing about sports is that they are that ex that you keep coming back to. As much as I don’t want to go through another crushing sports defeat that leaves me sad for weeks, it’s not my choice. The possible ecstasy that would come from one of my teams winning it all is too much for me to not actively follow their season. For something that has no tangible effect on my life, I seem to care about it so much. But I think this is because the first time I fell in love was with a sports team.

I know that sounds me weird but hear me out. I think most sports fans first real relationships were with sports team. It happens when you are a kid and usually you don’t even know its happening. Whether it was the 2003 Cubs or 2006 Super Bowl losing Bears, teams that got so close to winning it all, I was falling in love with those teams. Unknowingly I was going through each and every one of the nine stages and then going through them again and again and again. Unfortunately for me, most of my relationships have ended poorly. I still haven’t decided if being a Chicago sports fan is a gift or a curse. But even those somber endings did not take away from the experience of going through each stage and falling in love each time.

While people in your life can come and go, sports will always be there. Growing up I moved across the country, changed schools a few times and it wasn’t always easy. But I always took comfort in the fact that whatever might have been going on in my life, I always had my teams to come home to and watch, cheer and escape through their games. They have been one of the few constants in my life, providing support and stability.

I can’t break up with the Cubs because they are a part of me. I don’t know who I would be without them. They have been my partners since before I can even remember. The triumphant victories and heartbreaking defeats have played a part in molding me into who I am today.

So hey Cubs, I think we are going to last, and I look forward to falling in love, getting my heart broken and then doing it all over, season after season, again and again.

Reflections on a Cubs World Series

They did it! They actually did it! The aforementioned “It” of course, refers to winning the World Series, breaking the 108-year drought. My boys in blue came through, and I could not be more proud. I am proud because I know what went into finally breaking the curse. While I may have been threatening to break up with the Cubs only a few weeks ago, I never did, and I never have, so I remember just two short years ago when the Cubs did not even make the playoffs. I remember five years ago when they were arguably the worst team in baseball, but even then it felt like this was their destiny. While their play on the field was poor back then, they were clearly building towards something, they had a vision, and I always respected that, even though this vision led to a few 100-loss seasons. After this year, I could not be more proud of what that vision turned out to be.

The other emotion I found myself feeling was luck. I feel lucky that I got to witness the Cubs being crowned World Series champions because they have been known to go lifetimes without winning it. I feel lucky for the city of Chicago and the Cub fans all across the country that have been eagerly awaiting this day, not sure if it would ever come. And lastly I feel lucky to be a part of this incredible accomplishment, even though I know as a fan, I should not be taking much credit for the triumph. But there is something amazing about being a Cubs fan and the camaraderie that comes with it. There is a single fact that speaks to why Cubs fans are so amazing, why this World Series win is so important, and it is how I wish to end this reflection.

Over 5 million people attended the Chicago Cubs victory parade, making it the largest gathering of humans in the western hemisphere EVER.

As always, Go Cubs Go!

My Process

Original Piece

T for the Toronto Blue Jays

The Toronto blue Jays are not a talented team. They only have a few good players like Vernon Wells, Alex Rios, Frank Thomas and Troy Glaus. They won a World Series when a man named Joe Carter hit a walk off home run to win the game against the Philadelphia Philly’s.

They are the only major league baseball team in Canada. They used to share it with the Montreal Expos but they turned into the Washington Nationals.

For the last few seasons, the Blue Jays have struggled. They had a pitcher named Ted Lilly who was pretty good on their team. He was traded to the Cubs. Now they don’t have a good bullpen, except for Roy Halladay and A.J. Burnett. Roger Clemens was on the Blue Jays for two years. He was one of the greatest pitchers ever.

I don’t like the Blue Jays. I like the Chicago Cubs. They have stars like Derrek Lee, Alfonso Soriano, Aramis Ramirez and Pitcher Carlos Zambrano. That’s why I like the Cubs and hate the Blue Jays, The Cubs have better players then the Blue Jays. I also like the Cubs because they have been my favorite team since before I can remember. We moved away from Chicago last year, which was hard but whenever I watch the Cubs I remember my life and my friends from home and I really like that feeling. And I like that even though we had to leave Chicago, I got to bring the Cubs with me.

Researching My Project Idea

Text 1: http://www.espn.com/espn/feature/story/_/id/17588399/theo-epstein-mastermind-cubs-season

This piece takes an in depth look at Theo Epstein, the President of the Chicago Cubs. It is beautifully written and connects a lot to my potential topic in a lot of way I think. For my piece and project, I want to write something that on the surface looks like it is about sports, but in reality uses sports to talk about the human condition or something more important. I want to write something that sports fans like myself can quickly get into, but are left having read something they weren’t expecting that left them thinking about their lives and the role sport plays into it. This article is a helpful guide for me because while Epstein’s life is all baseball on the surface, in reality its not. There is so much more to him that matters just as much. Another topic discussed was getting consumed by sports. This is something I have experienced and seen all my friends go through one time or another. We care so much about something that has no tangible affect on our lives.

Text 2: http://sports.yahoo.com/news/vertical-pod-with-jj-redick--mike-dunleavy-jr-150645341.html

This text is actually a podcast run by NBA guard JJ Redick. On the specific one I listened to he is interviewing fellow NBA guard Mike Dunleavy. What I really liked about this specific podcast is how connected the two guys sound even though they have never been teammates. Throughout the podcast they discuss basketball and their personal lives like great old friends. I think they are able to communicate so well because of basketball. The sport brings them together and allows them to relate so well. I think the overarching general idea of this is that sport is a unifier. Hearing them discuss shooting, both of their specialties, is absolutely mind-boggling for me. I love to shoot and think I know a lot about the art of it, but they take it to the next level. While I do not believe this text will be similar to what I end up doing, I think it is a good preview for what I might do when I change the medium for my project.

Text 3: http://www.espn.com/espn/page2/story?page=simmons/041028

This last text is an article written after the Red Sox won the World Series in 2004 for the first time in 80 plus years. In the piece he details the course of the last game and the night after they win. He and his friends and family are overjoyed, yet Simmons wonders if anything had changed. He may have said this joking, but I was really drawn to it. Why do we care so much? Sports have no impact on our life, but why would he be so unbelievably ecstatic if they won and so terribly depressed if they lost? I am interested in this for my topic because I am wondering what is important as a fan, winning and losing or the experience of game? So as to say, would a fan want to watch a game if they knew their team was going to lose? This also doesn’t connect to my topic perfectly, but I think it’s a good example of the highs and lows I want to look at in my piece.

The written essays, texts 1 and 3 did a great job using the linguistic mode of communication. Text one was the most visually appealing, with the article featuring pictures and a short video of the subject that helped me learned a lot more about the kind of person he is. The photos themselves did a good job communicating gesturally by the poses the photographer had Theo Epstein do. Every text was well organized and aligned. Text two, the podcast was the least interesting to look at of all the texts, but still did a great communicating linguistically what to expect in the podcast.

I think the first text I looked at was the most successful given its rhetorical situation. Relating it back to the how, the article on Epstein did a really good job using basically every mode. The article was laid out in an aesthetically pleasing way with photos, videos and text. All this modes worked together to help the article be effective. I think the article knew its direct (baseball fans) and indirect (general sports fans/ people from Chicago/Boston) audiences very well. The context was the Cubs looming playoff run and because of that it was a great time to have a piece on their leader. Overall it was successful at showing depth of someone everyone thinks they have figured out. This was also the text that inspired me to do further research because I feel like I have now peeled back the onion and learned a lot about someone I thought I knew, and now I want to do it to others to learn the amazing and interesting characteristics they may be hiding. Lastly it reconfirms that this is similar to the writing I want to do in this project. I want my audience to think its just about sports, but then make it about everything else.

Repurposing Proposal

(A lot changed since then)

My original piece is a speech I wrote for my high schools sport night senior year. Sports night is this event where all the athletic teams from that year are honored by our school. One senior male and female athlete are chosen to give keynote speeches at the end of the night. I was chosen to give the speech because I played two sports, baseball and basketball all four years and the athletic director liked me. The purpose of the speech was to get people excited and more engaged with the sports program at our school. I wanted to sell the great 4-year experience I had just gone through to everyone in the room. The original audience was fellow athletes and their parents. I wrote the speech with the help of my dad right at the end of my senior year of high school.
I plan to repurpose this speech into an open letter to sports or athletics. I will take a section from my speech where I talk about a defining athletic experience from my youth and then build from there. Then I am planning on going to through the stages of my athletic years and discussing what sports gave me and what I took away from it. Since I plan on ending in the current stage I am in with regards to sports, retired, I think the essay will get more and more relatable especially to a reader who has no interest in sports. The essay will culminate looking at ideas much bigger than sport while showing how sports fit into them. I want to try and show why people like sports so much, because I believe it is not for the reasons people think. The new audience will be all sports fans, with a secondary audience of families of sports fans. I think it would be cool if I could give crazed sport fans families a picture of what is going on in their loved ones head. I think a piece like this could appear is ESPN magazine or Sports Illustrated. I think it would do best in a magazine that gets a wider audience but still normally has some sports content, but I am not sure if that exists.
This repurposing direction is important to me because I want to share with what I think I have discovered about sports. I can’t remember when I fell in love with sports. They have been one of the few constants my entire life. But as I have gotten older, and throughout different times in my life, the role of sports and their meaning to me has changed. I think now they have a role that will be the same for a while and the experience I have gained getting to this point is what is going to fuel my writing. At the place I am at right now, I think my experience with sports is as universal or common as it has ever been before. I think this will help me reach larger audiences if I repurpose this now.
I think a lot of the resources I use will be essay or chapters of books looking at sports and sociology. This is the main connection I am looking at in my project so this is where most of my research will be. I think most of my research will be done online using databases, website and possibly videos. Interviews, essay and whatever else can help me prove to my reader surprising reasons we love athletics. Once I begin researching more actively I am sure I will be using sources I never thought I would be now.
3 Models I will reverse engineer
1. Bill Simmons articles he did for Grant land. His articles have a really good balance of sport and what ever else he is talking about or lesson he is teaching that I want to try and replicate.
2. Zach Lowe is another talented writer who writes for ESPN that I want to reengineer. He takes a more analytical look at everything, unlike Simmons who is more of a storyteller, which I think is a good perspective to have. He also includes a lot more graphics and videos so it adds another dimension to evaluate.
3. Another guy is Malcolm Gladwell. He is one of my favorite writers who has had success-writing books and for publications. He sometimes writes about sports but I want to instead focus on how he writes as a whole. He is incredible at being informative and succinct at the same time. This is something I think I have struggled with in the past and I think reengineering this will help me learn strategies to improve this skill.

Rough Draft

Dear Chicago Cubs, I am Breaking Up with You

As a life long fan of the Cubs, our relationship has been long and hard. But if the Chicago Cubs do not win the World Series this year, for the first time since 1908, it’s over. I have put too much into this relationship for them to just continuously disappoint me. My friends have told me this is a bad relationship, I know it’s a bad relationship, and if they let me down once again this October, we are through.

I say this because being a sports fan is basically being in a relationship with your team. The thing about relationships is when they are bad, they have to end or they will continue to suck the life out of the parties. So that is what I pledge to do. If the Cubs, my partner in the world of baseball, damage our relationship again, it is time to move on.

Being a sports fan and dating are the same. You may not believe me now but let me show you. Elizabeth Marker says there are nine stages to a relationship and they are as follows.

Infatuation,
Understanding the stage
Stages of disturbance
The opinion maker
The molding stage
The Happy stage
The stage of doubts
The sexual exploration or bust stage
The stage of complete trust

These same stages can be applied to my experience as a sports fan.

The Infatuation Stage

We have all experienced this stage. You meet someone new, it’s exciting and you can see potential. You can’t stop thinking about them and make sure to not embarrass yourself in front of them. Your life gains a new purpose. You try and be cool, calculated and charismatic around them. You end up being awkward and clumsy but the other person doesn’t see it, because they too are infatuated with you.

While I have experienced this stage with girls before, and been as clumsy and awkward as you can possibly imagine, I have also experienced it with one of my favorite teams, the Chicago Bulls.

In 2010 the Bulls were a team on the rise. Anchored by third year, former number 1 overall pick Derrick Rose, the Bulls spent in free agency and acquired talent that made them on of the best teams in the game. At this time, I noticed myself to start to become to infatuated with the team. I would spend my days looking up stats and predictions at school, and before I went to bed I would think about how sweet it would be to bring the NBA championship back to Chicago. All the time I was doing this, the Bulls had not even played a game yet. However, I was so caught up in what could be, just like I have found myself doing with girls. I can see the potential, but unfortunately it doesn’t always materialize. That year the Bulls were amazing, but not good enough to complete my dream and bring the championship back to the Windy City. This is the problem with infatuation; at the end it doesn’t mean anything. There have been a few girls I was infatuated with, but nothing came of it. For some reason things didn’t blossom into what, on paper it seemed like they surely would. This was the same for the 2010 Bulls, amazing on paper, but in reality things did not go as I thought and hoped they would.

2. The understanding stage

This is the stage where infatuation goes from an idea to something tangible. Basically you realize that the person you are infatuated with may feel the same about you. You figure out that what you feel about them is actually the same, or similar to how they feel about you.

This stage in sports is where you realize that how you feel about a team in the same way they feel about themselves. I equate this feeling to the same one I felt watching the 2012 Chicago Bears. You can bet I was fully infatuated with this team, new coach and new playmakers all around the field. They were great on paper, but when it came to the actually game, they were even better. They opened the season 7 and 1. This was where the 2012 Bears and I entered to understanding stage of our relationship. I thought they were going to be good and now they were. What I believed in them, they believed in themselves. The admiration I was giving them was being reciprocated with their play on the field. This is a fun stage of a relationship or a season, but it never lasts long enough.

3. The stage of disturbance

This is the stage where things start to get complicated. While a new relationship may be blossoming, a small bump in the road can derail a bright future. You are still getting to know the other person, but life happens and there is some small disturbance that you have to decide if you are going to embrace, or let it ruin something good.

This stage reminds me of another Bears team. This was a few years later than the team from the last stage but they also got off to a strong start. Then came the disturbance. Their starting quarterback broke his thumb. This is the kind of disturbance that can end everything, like finding out your new girlfriend still texts her ex. But like with a relationship, you get to choose how you react to the adversity that faces you. I try to see the best in everyone and every situation, and that is what I do in relationships and in sports. So I decided to remain hopeful in the Bears lead by a backup quarterback. Fortunately backup quarterback Josh Mccown played amazingly, the team exceeded expectations and I did not let an early disturbance give up on my entire future with that Bears team.

4. The opinion maker

I’m actually going to connect this stage to this year’s Cubs, the team I might break up with. This year’s Cubs and I have gone through every stage I have mentioned but this stage stands out to me. This is because through the Cubs play I have formed very concrete opinions. They are a great team, and after I saw them come from behind to beat the San Francisco Giants in the first round of the playoffs, I thought to myself that this team has to win it all. In that moment I formed an opinion that the Cubs are the best team and they should win the World Series. The problem with this stage of a relationship is that it almost always sets you up for disappointment. I am a very optimistic person and a lot of times the favorable opinions I make about teams and people can end up being wrong and lead to future problems.

5. The molding Stage

By this stage, your expectations in your partner are set. The new set expectation can lead to both partners trying to mold themselves to the expectation set by the other. This can be very subtle in some cases but undoubtedly happens in almost every relationship. You do something because you think its what they would want you to do, and vice versa.

This stage connects well with Michigan’s football team around 2009 when Rich Rodriguez became the coach. Before he arrived, Michigan played a very traditional style of football, ground and pound. But with the rest of the country switching to new sexy, up-tempo offenses that aired out the ball and the team felt it had to make a change. Michigan did this because they believed it was what the fans wanted. They tried to change their whole dynamic from a pro style offense to a spread offense featuring an electric dual threat quarterback who could run and pass named Denard Robinson. This is an example of how the molding stage can ruin a relationship because while Michigan was caving to our desires of having a more exciting team, it did not translate to success, our only real desire. This is how the molding stage can be relationship breaking. Sometimes people try and be someone they are not, just like Michigan’s football team did, and like that team, it doesn’t usually work out.

6. The Happy Stage

This is a stage of a relationship you can only get to if you have successfully navigated the first five. This is the stage where the relationship cruises smoothly along and both parties are happy. This is usually a stage, at least in my experience that you do not realize you were in until it is over. But when it is happening, it’s the best. You feel like you and your partner are the perfect match and the possibilities for the future are endless.

This is how I feel about the Chicago Blackhawks. They are the only Chicago sports team to win a championship in my life time, unless you count the Bulls winning when I was 1 with Michael Jordan or the White Sox winning the World Series in two thousand whatever, who cares, it’s the White Sox. The Blackhawks, who have won the Stanley Cup three times in this decade, have managed to pause our relationship in the happy stage. They have done this by consistently being one of the best teams in Hockey. We have the occasional bump in the road like this years early playoff exit, but at the end of the day they continue to make me happy and rarely let me down.

7. The Stage of Doubts

This is a later stage where doubts start to creep into the relationship. Sometimes it is not certain what these doubts arise from, but usually there is an event or series of events where the relationship begins to crack. You start questioning how happy you are in the relationship. You compare it to ones you have had in the past and relationships of other couples you see around you. A relationship can survive these doubts, but to do so they need to be communicated and usually things need to change.

Stage seven has been the achilies heal of my relationship with the Bulls my entire life. They have been pretty consistently good the last 10 years but have never been great. While they have dominated regular season play, they have always disappointed in the playoffs. This had lead to so much heartbreak and disappointment that I find my constantly doubting the strength of what the Bulls and I have. When they come out and dominate to start the season I find myself in lust over the success and potential of the team. But at the same time, I find myself trying to hold back. I don’t want to dive into the deep end with the Bulls because every time I have before the deep end has been full of rocks and sharks. Instead I try and ground my expectations, dipping a toe in before even thinking about committing more. Just as with relationships with another person, if there is deep hesitation to fully commit, it usually means the relationship is destined for failure. That’s been my relationship with the Bulls, full of hope, but destined for tears.

8. The Sexual Exploration or Bust Stage

This is one of the last stages of a relationship and it dictates whether a couple is ready to take that final step or not. While the name of this stage is pretty provocative, I take this stage to mean the relationship as a whole keeps evolving. As apposed to stagnating and continuing to do the same things that you have done before, do you try new things? To be successful a relationship must continue to grow and change over time. Stagnation and indifference mean death.

While this stage is overarching and has strengthened or broken my relationships with all the teams I have rooted for over the years, this years Cubs provide another good example. What this means in sports is that when your team is successful, do they try to be better than they are at the moment, or are they content with staying at the level of play they are at. This year the Cubs exploded out of the gates to start the season to become one of baseballs best teams. While having the best record in the league, the Cubs were still buyers at the trade deadline spending money and trading for players in an attempt to get better. I loved this because it felt like they were reinforcing to me that they were as committed to me in our relationship as I was to them. While I was ecstatic with how good they were playing, I wanted them to get better and that’s exactly what they did. If they had not done anything to get better during the season I think their level of play would have plateaued and so would my faith in them. Instead our relationship has continued to change and strengthen.

9. The Stage of Complete Trust

This is a happy stage where partners both love and trust each other completely. They know what their relationship is and they know where it’s going. At this stage it can be easy to start taking the other person for granted, but usually a relationship that reaches this stage is one that will last for a while.

For the last time I will again use this year’s Cubs because this is the current state of our relationship. The Cubs are currently 7 wins away from winning the World Series. They have had a magical season and are close to doing something they haven’t done since 1908. Because it has been so long, it is impossible to take the scope of this moment and this team for granted. I am in it for the long haul, but at the same time know I could soon face complete and utter disappointment. The kind of disappointment where you feel hopeless. The kind of disappointment that can end relationships.

Dear Chicago Cubs, I am Breaking Up With You

This is how I started the essay and what I should do if the Cubs don’t hold up their end of our relationship, but I can’t. The thing about sports is that they are that ex that you keep coming back to. As much as I don’t want to go through another crushing sports defeat that leaves me sad for weeks, it’s not my choice. For something that has no tangible effect on my life, I seem to care about it so much. But I think this is because the first time I fell in love was with a sports team.

I actually think most sports fans first real relationship were with a sports team. It happens when you are a kid and usually you don’t even know its happening. Whether it was the 2003 Cubs or the 2006 Bears, teams that got so close to winning it all, I was falling in love with those teams. Unknowingly I was going through each and every one of the 9 stages and then going through them again and again and again. Unfortunately for me, most of my relationships have ended poorly. I still haven’t decided if being a Chicago sports fan is a gift or a curse. But even those somber endings did not take away from the experience of going through each stage and falling in love each time.

I can’t break up with the Cubs or any of my teams because they are a part of me. I don’t know who I would be without them. They have been my partners since before I can even remember. The triumphant victories and heartbreaking defeats have played a part in molding me into who I am today.

Hey Cubs, I think we are going to last, and I look forward to falling in love, getting my heartbroken and then doing it all over, season after season, again and again.

Peer Review Letters

Dear Grant,

I think the argument you are trying to make is that fans relationships with sports team are very similar to the relationships we have with people. More specifically, romantic relationships that we have with people. I am unclear as to what the specific genre is. I would say it is formatted almost as an open letter but you incorporate textual evidence to make an argument. I am confused on what genre you are aiming for. The audience of the piece seems to be anyone who has ever been a fan and has been in a relationship before. I gather this from the context of the piece. One would have to love sports and understand relationships to fully understand the emotional connection.

One specific content-based thing that I think is working really well is your connection to the nine stages of a relationship. I think this is a really interesting way to express your love for the sport as well as the challenges that come with being a dedicated fan. I think you have broken up your piece into sections that are easy to read. This design is working really well right now.

My question for you is: how are you going to relate the nine stages to your final conclusion. I was a little bit thrown off to read that you were not going to break up with the Cubs but rather keep the relationship going. The title of the piece sets a very different tone. I think there is a gap in the argument here that you may want to revisit. As far as the headings, I wonder if you wrote this as more of an open letter format if it would read smoother. You could still incorporate evidence of the 9 stages, but do so in a way that maybe the Cubs are your audience and you are explaining to them the stages of your relationship. Just a thought.

Best,

Anna

Dear Grant,

I think that your piece is trying to make the argument that a love for sports, and more specifically your love for sports, is something deeper than a typical matter of watching a game play out. For you it is a lifestyle, and even more than that, a relationship with something that you love.

The genre seems to be just an amusing opinion piece that you might see on Buzzfeed, but a Buzzfeed for sports? I don’t know. I don’t really read articles and publications that deal with sports. Your piece definitely has an amusing, informal tone to it that I would expect from such a piece though. I think this was used effectively. I don’t enjoy reading about sports and I didn’t understand half of the things you were really saying, but I still found it interesting how you took the time to compare the stages of being a fan to the stages of a relationship.

I think that the audience of the piece seems to be for fellow sports fans who understand what it’s like to be in love with a team. As I said before, even though I was able to find it amusing, I did not understand a lot of what you were saying since I don’t follow sports. This makes me think that your intended audience is someone who has a better background in this area.

A content-based thing that I think is really working for you is this whole comparison of loving a sports team to loving a person. I think it’s a really cool and interesting take on the idea, and you should continue to roll with it. It’s really funny too how you were able to set it up in the beginning. A design choice that I liked was how you defined all of the stages at the beginning, and then went through each one step-by-step to go further into detail. It was a nice preview of what was to come by having them all listed out at the beginning.

A question that I have, besides asking about the sports stuff that I clearly have no idea about, is why did you talk about so many teams? You explicitly said that you have gone through all of these stages with the Cubs, and you start off the paper by talking about the Cubs, so why do you bring in every other sports team in Chicago if it is your relationship with the Cubs that you are focusing on?

A content suggestion that I have is to be a little more mysterious at the beginning of your paper. You could just say that you are breaking up with someone and make it sound like it is a person, and then Bam, you reveal that it was just the Cubs you’ve been talking about for the past paragraph. I don’t know, I just think that that could help the paper sound more amusing.

A design suggestion that I have is to maybe add in some pictures. Pictures of the Cubs, pictures of you, pictures of you at Cubs’ games, etc. Once again, I just think it would be funny to have that and maybe add in some captions at the bottom like “one-year anniversary” or “you make me so happy”, just silly things like that. Just a suggestion.

I like the change you made for your re-purposing! I’m excited to see where it goes; I think it has a lot of potential.

Amy Rechkemmer

Annotated Bibliography

Krisitn L. Arola, Jennifer Sheppard, Cheryl E. Ball. Wrtier/Designer A Guide to Making Multimodal Projects. Boston

This book goes in depth on the ins and outs of multimodal projects. This book details communication techniques that will be used throughout the E-Portfolio. This includes strategies to use during the writing of the essay, and the designing of the e-portfolio final site.

Bill Simmons. The Consequences of Caring. Grantland, 2012

In this article, Bill Simmons describes his young daughter's quick descent into fandom of the Los Angeles Kings, a hockey team. He talks about the highs of an improbable playoff run, to the lows of the team coming short of winning a championship on his young daughter. What I think is important about this article was how he talks about how his daughter “fell in love” with the team. They were her first love and the ensuing relationship took its course. He also goes on to focus on the “little moments” in sports and how they are actually the defining moments. This is a strong source for me because Simmons views reflect closely to my own. I think the articles framework is one I should try to emulate and the story of his daughter is one I could see including.

Emily Kaplan. Before Chris Borland, There was Jacob Bell. The MMQB, 2016

While I am mainly just using this site as a genre reference I found this article that I think could be an asset for me. In this article, Kaplan looks at former NFL players who retired early and left millions of dollars on the table. What I think is valuable to me is athletes quitting the game and their job because they want to do other things with their lives. They have dreams and pursuits that are more important to them than sport. They are also saying that playing the game is not worth sacrificing their future. This seems crazy to people, giving up the chance to be a professional athlete. But they present strong arguments that they are at places where they can both acknowledged there are a lot of more important things in their lives and they had to make the decision they did.

Adam Bramer. Hype-Tape Superstar Sam McGuffie’s crazy Journey from CFB to NFL to… Olympics? Bleacher Report, 2016

This also was a site were I was using to reference genre but I think the Sam McGuffie story will help me show how sport can consume. The article looks at Sam Mcguffie’s experience playing football in college and NFL before getting injured and having to try a new sport. What I like about McGuffie is that when one journey ends in sports, another one immediately starts. If he can’t play in the NFL, he will play rugby. If he can’t play rugby, he will bobsled. Whatever the sport may be, McGuffie has to play it. While he has faced a lot of adversity that would make others quit, MCguffie has continued to defy the odds and keep playing. I want to look at what drives him and what that means about an athletes connection to sports and completion.

Arthur, Elizabeth. "9 Relationship Stages That All Couples Go Through." LovePanky - Your Guide to Better Love and Relationships. N.p., 2015. Web. 20 Dec. 2016.

This site details the stages of a relationship I look at in my re-purposing and remediation pieces. The author, Elizabeth Arthur does a good job breaking down each stage of the relationship and explaining it. This site helped propel me to the idea of connecting each individual stage of a relationship with a stage of being a fan. Genre conventions wise, this site and mine have few intersections, but what I do really like is how she writes in short, to the point small segments. This makes her essay easy to read and understand.

Emery, Eric, "Dear Football: I'm Breaking Up With You." The Beachwood Reporter : Sports. N.p., n.d. Web. 20 Dec. 2016.

This piece is an essay written by Eric Emery where he breaks up with football. While our ideas may have been different, it was really to read another essay were someone was also essentially breaking up with a team. It was helpful to see the format of how he directed his letter at football, even though my letter is not really directed towards the Cubs. One thing he does do that I don’t is introducing competition. When I write about all the hardships that come along with being a Cubs fan, it might be powerful to contrast it with the ease of being a New York Yankee fan. All in all very helpful to read this article and see someone with the same mindset about their fandom, and view towards their teams.

Repurposing Intro

Here you will find my repurposing piece. For this project, I started with an essay, if you would call it that, that I wrote when I was in 5th grade about the Cubs. I repurposed part of that paper and turned it into this piece about being a sports fan and the relationship it leads to with your team. The argument from my original paper was given a new purpose, and it was directed towards a new audience. My direct newly intended audience is big sports fans, but I think my paper can appeal and be relatable to anyone who has ever rooted for a team at any level. The paper breaks down each stage of a relationship and connects it to a stage of being a sports fan. Below the essay, you will find my complete process for creating this paper from its conception. My final disclaimer is that it is very important to remember that this was written before the Cubs won the World Series. With that in mind, and without further ado, I hope you enjoy my piece.

Here you will find every piece of work that went into creating my repurposing project from the original essay I wrote when I was ten up to the peer critque letters I recieved from my blog group about my rough draft. What I think this collection of work details is the many struggles I had while creating this project. As you can see is some of my earlier pieces, I made a significant change to my idea early on. Originally, I wanted to write some loving and admiring piece about why I think sports are so important, and why they are about so much more than winning or losing. However, after discussing my idea with my peers, and specifically hearing about an essay where a girl broke up with tennis, I knew what I had to do. Quickly my source material and essay's focus changed to exhibit my experience of being a fan. I enjoyed writing about this because it let me explore a side of myself that I rarely do through writing, and I was writing about something that was happening right in front of my eyes. I guess I liked the uncertainty that came with writing the piece because I did not know how far the Cubs would get in the playoffs. An early exit while I was still crafting my paper most likely would have lead to a different ending or at least a change in tone. While I believe my writing process to be jumbled, confusing and chaotic at times, I hope the inclusion of each step sheds light on my writing process and offers a unique view of motivators. Enjoy and feel encouraged to contact me with any questions or thoughts these pieces raise in the about me section of the site!

Grant Berkshire

Writing 220 E-Portfolio

Repurposing

My Process