The Amazingly Awful: A Response to the Vanderbilt Basketball Team Thus Far

Editor's Note: The Vanderbilt men’s basketball team began the season ranked as the #7 team
in the country and were mentioned in the same breath for the first time ever with contending teams like North Carolina, Kentucky and Ohio State. The Vanderbilt Commodores are now 6-3, and have lost two games in a row to ranked opponents (Xavier and Lousville), not to mention one game to an unranked opponent (Cleveland State).


Josh Spilker, the author of the piece below, is somewhat concerned about Vanderbilt basketball considering more “tough” nonconference games still must be played (Marquette) as well as “tough” conference games (2x Kentucky/ Florida, 1x Alabama). Due to these circumstances, he is left to wonder about the value of his Vanderbilt season tickets.

There’s you and there’s the store and there’s this new AMAZING THING valued at a HIGH price and you’re kind of okay with it because you did all the research and all the best blogs/sites/Uncle Milton says “it’s totally worth it” and you realize you’ve never bought something of QUALITY in your life, so you go on believing that the investment is SOLID and you feel good until you actually watch the THING, until the back end of it falls off, until the THING makes a weird WHIR_WHIR_WHIRRING noise and begins spitting out parts and pieces all across your floor, it is wheezing and you are gasping and you wonder what does Uncle Milton REALLY KNOW and you realize that NO ONE KNOWS ANYTHING AT ALL not even the THING itself can fix itself, which you realize is a very hopeless state for all of us to be in, to put such EXPECTATIONS on someTHING so fleeting.


You were so convinced. The THING was able to do THIS and THAT and all of this/that AMAZINGLY WELL in the commercials, as it well should have, you thought considering the HIGH value that every one put on it. But then there were a few things that it did AMAZINGLY AWFUL and the solid block of
CONFIDENCE that you once had in the THING have become fragile and have broken off and now float around in your head and these pieces have transformed themselves from CONFIDENCE and even have adopted a new name (they call themselves “DOUBT”) and frankly you hate this name, you’ve always hated this name, and there’s absolutely no way to change that name. You knew you should’ve stuck to your gut and never bought into this THING with such a high value, you are stupid for believing and you knew that you should have believed and bought into the one thing that you knew worked: ENHANCED MEDIOCRITY.

Because with ENHANCED MEDIOCRITY you don’t mind the WHIR_WHIR_WHIRRING in fact, that is supposed to happen. You don’t mind when the THING OF ENHANCED MEDIOCRITY falls apart a little bit, because your expectations were low and totally appropriate and if the THING happens to do better than its allotted portion in life (ENHANCED MEDIOCRITY) and actually performed AMAZINGLY WELL then you would consider it your good fortune and be okay with those outcomes and say thanks for exceeding expectations.

Because it’s the HIGH initial value that kills. Blasted expectations. Everything has become “DOUBT” so quickly. "DOUBT" and all its fragments CUT AND CUT AND CUT. And then "DOUBT" RIPS YOU OFF.

Josh Spilker runs Deckfight Press and the accompanying blog. He is also a frequent guest of LCB.