Don't Become Immune to Success
In an era where many college sports fans seem to demand perfection, let's demand perspective instead.
To talk about volleyball, I need to first talk about football: Penn State got greedy when it fired James Franklin.
Yes, we all heard – or often made – the "Big Game James" jokes. The stats were displayed so frequently they may have been seared like ghosts into some old plasma TVs: 4-21 against Top-10 opponents, 1-18 against such opponents in the Big Ten.
That shields the fact that over the last decade, Franklin and Penn State were largely successful:
- 90-33 overall record since 2016
- Five AP Top 10 finishes
- Six trips to New Year's Six bowls
Franklin was a field goal away from the National Championship game in January, and come October he's fired.
Yes, he duffed his chance with the Preseason #2 team. Yes, there was the stat about being the first team to lose back-to-back games in which they were favored by 20+ points – actually that one is still very funny to me.
But we're more than a month after Franklin's firing, aaaaaand no replacement. The music hasn't just stopped on the Coaching Musical Chairs, the DJ has packed his speakers into his van and left. Now PSU has two – count 'em – two freshmen signed for next season. The headline 'Penn State had the most humiliating Signing Day' seems to capture the spirit here.
The fans in Happy Valley who were so sick of James Franklin may now well be wishing their prayers to be rid of him had gone unanswered.
OK, what does this have to do with Pitt Volleyball?
If you don't know what success looks like in sports, if you can't appreciate it and value it, you could be doomed to throw success away in some Lexus-esque Relentless Pursuit of Perfection.
Pitt Volleyball has reached four consecutive Final Fours (in case you missed my photo up at the top) and will need to replace its ACC Volleyball Champions banner after winning a seventh conference title last week.
More likely than not, in two weeks Pitt will be playing in its *fifth* consecutive Final Four – the good folks at Evollve put the odds at precisely 62.3%, while simulations with Pablo rankings bring it down a bit to 55%.
Yes, the Panthers have to get there first. As I wrote earlier this week, a mighty strong SMU team could be in their path. But if Pitt prevails in getting to Kansas City, we're looking at incredible streak of success – plus an almost-certain repeat of National Player of the Year for Olivia Babcock.
And yet.
Each December, we've witnessed the unfortunate déjà vu:
- 2021 Final Four, lose to Nebraska
- 2022 Final Four, lose to Louisville
- 2023 Final Four, lose to Nebraska again
- 2024 Final Four, lose to Louisville again
- 2025 Final Four, lose to Nebraska again again?
Evollve projects the undefeated Cornhuskers as four times more likely (or four times as likely? eh, too late now) to reach the National Championship match than the Panthers. So yes, out of all the scenarios for how Pitt's 2025 season ends, another Final Four heartbreaker to a team in red is the betting favorite.
If that happens, the chatter on social media and elsewhere is predictable. Pittsburghers who barely ever tune in for a volleyball match will once again opine about what the issue is.
And hey, I'm not exactly enamored with the situation myself. I have traveled to each of those Final Fours just to experience another thud of a National Semifinal defeat. Yes, Louisville and Omaha are lovely cities, but I'm not exactly saving up my PTO to go back to either one in the winter.
So why do I have my flights and hotels already booked for another go-around in Kansas City? Well, that's fandom for you.
One of these years it's going to happen. The passing will click. The matchups will work out in our favor. The adjustments will be spot on. Clutch players will make clutch plays.
Last year, Penn State entered the Final Four in Louisville with Evollve giving them just 3.6% odds of winning it all. At Churchill Downs, they'd call a 27-to-1 horse a longshot. The Nittany Lions defied it. Team of Destiny? Perhaps. It did make for a nice story at the ESPYs. But they strung together six victories in December, and that's all it took.
Here's the important thing: even if this year's Pitt team comes up short again, I'd still call a fifth straight Final Four a success. If you tell me I get to watch this team win four more times at the Pete, to watch one last go-around with ACC Defensive Player of the Year Bre Kelley blocking some unfortunate opposing hitters, I'll take that with a smile.
Maybe my attitude comes from witnessing another time that success at Pitt went under-appreciated.
The Dixon Saga
It's been almost a decade since Jamie Dixon left Pitt to become the men's basketball head coach at his alma mater: TCU. It was not a firing, but could be fairly called a mutual parting of ways, as Pitt's then-athletic director "softened" Dixon's hefty buyout to hasten the arrangement.
The Horned Frogs hadn't made the NCAA Tournament in 19 seasons when Dixon arrived, and he got them back to March Madness in his second year. Post-pandemic-weirdness, he guided TCU to three straight tournaments, the longest such run in school history.
Of course, just like Pitt fans had become disenchanted with Dixon despite a .727 winning percentage during his tenure in Oakland, TCU fans are growing tired of Dixon after missing the Tournament last year – so much so that a Fort Worth columnist had to inject some gratitude back in March:
Mac Engel
Since he left Pittsburgh for TCU in the spring of 2016, the Panthers have made the NCAA Tournament once. Unless they win the ACC Tournament, Pitt will miss the tournament again.
It may be ready to move on from coach Jeff Capel, which would mean the school would have to hire a third head coach since Dixon left for TCU.
As much as Pitt people were ready for Dixon to go anywhere but back to the Pitt sideline, they did take for granted he made that program relevant, and competitive.
Taking it for granted... that's really the heart of the thing, isn't it? A decade ago, Pitt hoops fans started to take March Madness appearances for granted, and now we're trapped in basketball purgatory. I don't think we need to be haunted by three spirits this Christmas to learn the right lesson here.
The headline up top – Don't Become Immune to Success – is less a command from me to you than a reminder from me to me. We all get accustomed to the nice things in our lives – hedonic adaption is real. That's why I'm taking this as a chance to tell my brain "shut up and enjoy this."
Sure, I'd be disappointed with losing. We all would. But I'm aiming to maintain perspective.
I don't want to ever become a fan who can't recognize the good ol' days when he's amid them. These are the good old days – a generational player, a new facility near its opening, a stellar recruiting class, and a coach who has built a budding blue blood from practically nothing.
It's not that coach Dan Fisher is at any risk of being fired like Franklin or gestured broadly toward the door like Dixon. He's signed through 2030, and I plan to enjoy every one of those years. This has all been too much of a joy for me to frown too long when things fail.
The tournament starts today. And if it's all right with you, I'm going to enjoy the ride.
Okay! Lotta words up there; who let me write all of that?!
Anyway, I did create an ESPN Volleyball Championship Challenge bracket pool. The link to join is below and here.
I like that it says "Join Pitt Volleyball Bandwagon!"
Have fun, and remember that the volleyball tournament is a lot more chalky and slanted toward the favorites than the men's basketball tournament. The matches start at 3:00 PM Eastern today, so don't dawdle (like I have)!
