I heard this being discussed the other day on a local radio talk show and it struck me as strange that the radio people were talking about the Sun Devils and most of the rest of the Pac-12 having all this tradition going on at their school(s). I just do not see it that way.
West Coast football is a pretty "what have you done for me lately" kind of fan base. It is a band-wagon culture to me because if your team is not winning then there is no support for the programs. Growing up in Oregon, support for either Oregon State or Oregon was not even close to what it is now. The football programs were terrible, had many seasons where the only competitive game for either school was the Civil War game. I attended the Civil War game that ended in 0-0 tie and the most interesting play was the last play where the Ducks were trying to pull off a Stanford-California ending. It didn't work, but made the last 20 seconds more interesting than the rest of the game. Tradition was non existent for either school. Fans were not vocal about their teams like they are now. It's funny how winning cures that.
The tradition of winning was really regulated to three schools Washington, UCLA, and USC back in the day. It seemed like those three schools were the ones on a rotating basis for the Rose Bowl. Other than that, no other school had any tradition in terms of winning and thinking that they were the next "up and coming" program. Sure, an ASU might sneak into the Rose Bowl or a University of Arizona make a push every four years, but that does not make for any kind of tradition.
Since I live down here in the desert I often hear Sun Devil fans talk about this tradition that they have of winning. What? What kind of blinders do you have on? Eventually, the conversation goes back to Frank Kush era down here. Ok, that was a LONG time ago. Tradition means, it is consistent, not just a period of time. Don't get me wrong, other school fans are like this as well. UCLA and Washington fans are you listening? The Bruins fell off the map for awhile as well. Some people didn't even realize there was another university in town besides USC while the Trojans were squashing everybody and winning National Title and competing for other championship titles. Washington has disappeared from any talk of winning anything. The Dawgs are mired in mediocrity currently. As for my Oregon State Beavers, a school that is more or less known for having 30 losing seasons in row, we should be under no illusions of any kind of tradition in Corvallis. We are just happy we win more than 3 games a year now.
About a year ago, I had a good high school friend of mine come into town from back east we had this conversation about how disillusioned many Pac-12 program fans are when they talk about winning tradition. My buddy is a graduate of the University of Oregon and he supports his Ducks all the time, but he knows there is not this huge tradition of winning in Eugene. He told me that Duck fans have forgotten how bad it was because of the recent success and the help that Phil Knight has provided. We both agreed that when you talk about winning tradition you need to look no further than teams in the south. The fans are not "fair weather" like they are here out West. The support for them is unwavering ALL the time.
Would I like to see the winning tradition take over in the Pac-12? You bet I would, but lets be realistic about things. We are little more relaxed out here in the West and look at our football programs a little differently in terms of winning. If they win we go to games, they don't win, well, we don't. It really is that simple... just saying.
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