We all know that whenever the Yankees don’t win the World
Series, New Yorkers consider the season a failure. Yet, in Chicago,
when the Cubs so much as make the playoffs, the city shuts down as
if the circus were in town.

Certainly, all teams have different ways to gauge their
accomplishments. But disparity in measures of athletic success
never become fully apparent until witnessed first hand.

This weekend, some friends and I took a road trip to escape the
November doldrums of SLU and catch a game between the Bengals and
the Chiefs. After spending Saturday night at the University of
Miami Ohio, we sped off early Sunday morning, armed with headaches
and bouts of nausea, to arrive in time for tailgating.

In the parking lot, while participating in some of the customs
unique to the Cincinnati lifestyle–playing a game of cornhole,
cooking a met on the propane grill–we got a chance to observe
something that was all but a dying breed no more than a year ago:
Bengals fans. For me, a Chiefs supporter, this season has been such
a happy change. It’s winning for the first time in five years,
without having to put up with the frustrations of “Marty-ball.”
Still, in spite of the success, there seems to be a collective
nervousness among KC fans.

Most would be ecstatic with a 9-1 record and fully confident no
one could possibly stop their team. Not so for the Chiefs’
faithful. We’ve seen teams with records as good as 13-3 fall apart
all too fast in the playoffs–on more than one occasion. The
attitude is more of, “This team is sure fun to watch; but we’ll
hold off the cheering until the job is done.”

How different things are in Cincinnati. At 4-5, Bengal fans had
taken the paper bags off their heads. They were, inexplicably, only
a game out of first place.

New head coach Marvin Lewis and rookie Rudi Johnson had
electrified the team into an aura of respectability. With the
Chiefs in town, that was enough to draw a sellout.

During the game a tribal war chant of “WHO-DEY,” sounding more
like a potential name for a third Hussein brother than a football
cheer, echoed through the stadium with nearly every play that went
the way of the Bengals. Much to my chagrin, most of the plays did
just that, and Cincinnati ran away with the victory.

Sure, I’m still kind of bitter. Having to deal with taunts from
fans of a team that amassed as many wins in the 90s as the Chiefs
averaged per season that same decade was no fun. But they beat us;
and they beat us good.

The Bengals now sit in first place, albeit with a 5-5 record.
They downed the only undefeated team left in football, at times
making the juggernaut Chiefs offense look abysmal while taking
advantage of every mistake the sloppy KC defense made.

For a team that has been the laughing stock of professional
sports for the past 13 years, an 8-8 season in 1996 was euphoric.
With a chance to better that record and possibly–should I even
dare say it?–make the playoffs; no words can describe the
uproar.

For once-proud team that has become better associated with their
more contemporary nickname, the “Bungles,” beating the best team in
football was enough to bring Paul Brown Stadium nearly to the
ground. It’s a wonder they didn’t make off with the goalposts.

So how, then, do you measure the worth of a victory? Is it by
trophies or by joy?

As little sense as it may make, those Bengals fans may have been
just as happy last Sunday as I would be if the Chiefs come home in
January with a Super Bowl.

The trip, at least, was a success of destructive measure. We
private school boys were run over like a freight train in the midst
of state university chaos.

But a road trip can always solve those late semester blues, even
if your team doesn’t come out on top.