Go Fuck Yourself, Jonathan Krause

Fuck you, man, and what a load of bullshit:

I sure hope the kids on the Oshkosh North and Oshkosh West boys basketball teams realize how good they have it. Winning all of those conference titles. Playing for sectional championships and state titles every year. A few days in Madison every March may as well be built into the school calendar at West (we could use those as snow makeup days if the team doesn't go to state).

Reading this paragraph by itself, like with most of the shit that Krause passes off as commentary on his blog, I have no idea if he's being sarcastic or serious. It is, after all, only the first paragraph. But then he proceeds to pull the horseshit grouchy old man back-in-my-day-we-had-it-so-rough routine. Read, the rest, if you'd like.

I've never seen such selfish whining over a long lost high school athletic career in my life. The kids at North and West worked their asses off this season (and that's what we're talking about here, this season -- no one gives a fuck about what happened 20 years ago). They didn't get lucky: they got good. And instead of taking a moment to appreciate just how good they are, Krause goes ahead and treats their entire season like it was handed to them on a silver platter, like both Oshkosh teams were just given their respective #1 and #2 spots in the conference tournament because the rest of the FVA rolled over and said, "You know what? It'd be nice to give those kids in Oshkosh their chance at winning this thing for once?"

Bullshit.

West won back-to-back state championships in recent years and has established itself as a state powerhouse with a program that basically gets their athletes started in middle school. Do you think their opponents don't want a piece of that? That West doesn't go through the season without a target on its back? Not in the least.

The North program is notorious for being able to squeeze a whole lot of production from kids that don't necessarily have a whole lot of natural athletic ability. Do you think opposing coaches just tell their kids, "Hey guys, we've got North this week, so take 'er easy"? Of course not.

Both teams worked their balls off to get where they are today. They work harder then their classmates do during the season and apparently harder than their peers in a lot of the schools in the area too. We should be ecstatic about that. We should celebrate that, not belittle it, you whiny little bitch...

"It shows real commitment when you come in the day after losing your 10th in row." Again, fuck you. Those kids showed real commitment to what they were doing not just by showing up, but by showing up to play at every practice. And I'm not talking about just this season, but those kids have been at it for years now, and during the off season too. If they didn't, they wouldn't have won as many games as they did.

Commitment isn't showing up to practice after losing your tenth game in a row -- that's called a scheduled appointment. Commitment is going to the gym in July to practice free throws. The ballers at North and West didn't need to lose ten games in a row to realize that losing sucks. Once was probably enough.

We didn't enjoy the big crowds that will pack the Kolf Sports Center tonight and tomorrow. Average attendance was all of the guys who couldn't stand the coach and didn't go out for basketball--our friends--and our parents. There were some nights we were outcheered by visiting fans in our own gym. Wrestling was the big sport at that time--and they got the big student turnout and the community support.

Boo-fucking-hoo.

Let's not pretend for a second that Krause is just putting on his contrarian hat for the morning and forcing readers to think a different way. His post is indicative of the worst kind of commentary: the kind that diminishes the actual story and replaces it with the author's story.

"Whenever I tell coaches that I played at Bay Port, I always have to preface it by saying that I went there before they got good at every sport." What? Were you like the John the Baptist of the Bay Port athletic department, sacrificing personal glory at the altar of Success so that later Bay Portians could drink from the Chalice of Victory?

Give me a goddamn break...

"When I was in high school we didn't win squat. We didn't make it out of the first round of the playoffs in any year. It didn't help that we had to play teams with Tony Bennett and Jeff Messenger on them."

Christ, you just knew there was going to be some name dropping involved ... like Krause's team played Bennett every game or whatever. And just in case no one noticed, none of the kids who will actually be playing this weekend, or their coaches, got a shout out from Krause.

So I hope the players and the fans at the Kolf appreciate just how special this situation is because there are a lot of us out there that never got to experience it. May the best team win.

Jesus, Krause, fuck you a thousand times over and can you stop thinking about yourself for a goddamn minute?

I, I, I ... me, me, me ... throw in the occasional we and you've got the Krausian writing style pretty much down pat. Well allow me to return to the first person singular for a moment to say that I'm sure I speak for many people in the greater Oshkosh metropolitan area when I say that no one gives a shit about that fact that your high school basketball team blew goats' balls. We genuinely and sincerely don't give a fuck. The story is about the kids who are playing tonight, not an aging prick who had it rough on the mean streets hardwood of the Bay Port High School Gymnasium.

So dispense with the condescending "I hope you all appreciate this" bullshit. Get over it. Be happy for these kids because it wasn't just given to them. They earned it. And if that's not something you can get through your impenetrable skull, than kindly go fuck yourself.