Monday evening, when most people in America were either celebrating the truest Hallmark holiday of them all, or cursing it to high heaven, the Savannah State Tigers were busy trying to avoid their appointment with destiny in their final regular-season game against Florida A&M. .
Fate was waiting to deal the inevitable spot in the NCAA Hall of Shame.
Savannah State, once the bearer of a model African-American university athletic program, just finished their season 0-28, becoming only the second team in the last 50 years of Division I athletics to finish their season without a single victory (Prairie View A&M, back in 1991, was the other team).
Aside from the heartache that the players and coaches on the squad are feeling, not unlike that of the would-be Valentine's Day revelers who were missed by cupid's arrow, I have been at a loss lately thinking about the Tiger fans (the few but the proud) and the shocked mental state they have probably been put in as well.
They were put through dismal defeats by top programs like Iowa State, Florida State and Kansas State. Their best opponent, Memphis, trounced them by 60.
But then there are the games in which they were supposed to do well in.
Games against teams like Armstrong Atlantic State, who beat them by 16, Mercer, who blew them out by 32, and to Eastern Kentucky, who trounced them by 22. And then they lost to Georgia Southern. Twice. Finally, in their last game of the year, against Florida A&M, they had their best game.
They were even within one point of a tie with 10 seconds left and the final shot. But that was as close as they would come.
One blocked shot and a long tearful team huddle later, the Tigers walked off their home court. Defeated and devastated, with no one but themselves who could even understand what they were going through.
I am not going to lie. When I first heard the sorry saga of Savannah State, they were only on their way to this dismal outcome.
It was three weeks ago and the Tigers were 0-24, with four more games to go to set their record "right."
Their plans to avoid being a footnote in history, however, were unavoidable; and it looks to be less of a fluke and more of a trend. They have won a grand total of three games in the past three seasons.
They are the doormat of Division I and they might always be; they have been ranked as the worst team in D-1 by espn.com since the middle of the year.
Most opposing teams, and their fans, only recognize a victory over a team like Savannah State by its absence.
It is as expected as the Yankees winning a World Series and the Indians not.
Thus, there has rarely been an occasion to cheer if you are a Savannah State fan.
And it's not to say that things will always be this way, but as most any fan will tell you, the greatest thing about a victory is that it helps you deal with the losses that will inevitably come.
So the question is this: What are the Tiger fans supposed to fall back on this off-season?
Their solace might be found in, of all places, the classic Melville novel: Moby Dick.
In Moby Dick Ahab, the whale ship Pequod's captain, says that the secret to enjoying time on a whale ship is to just assume from the beginning that you won't survive the journey.
Every subsequent experience, every moment you don't die, is just gravy. It is a fatalist way of looking at things, but at the same time, while there certainly has never been a team who surpasses an "oh-fer" season, like Savannah State's, we can be sure that there is nowhere to go but up. They have been to the depths of collegiate basketball and lived to tell the tale.
As the Brooklyn Dodgers used to "wait 'til next year" so, too, will the Savannah State Tigers.
The beginning of next season, and the promise of an unblemished record, is only a few short months away.
The returning Tigers players most certainly can't wait to put this stretch of their lives behind them, and work even harder at besting this past season's record, if only by a game.
But what about the fans? Winning never causes a fan to question their pursuit of being a fan. Losing does.
