Root, root, root of the pain

Sports fan coach helps cope with miserable seasons

ABS still ache from the gut punch. When the Raiders failed to squish the fish last week, letting the Miami Dolphins off the hook by forgoing a late touchdown in favor of a field goal only to watch ’Fins quarterback Ryan Fitzpatrick drive the length of the field for a game-winning score, it felt like taking a tire iron to the midriff.

Nineteen (expletive) (expletive) (expletive) seconds.

That’s it all it took for a high to become a low.

Fists were shaken. Porpoises were cursed. Remote controls were hurled.

Afterward, just saying “FitzMagic” left a foul taste in the mouth, as if the QB’s suddenly rancid nickname came slathered in battery acid.

Mike Bass has been there.

A sports writer and editor for decades and a lifelong Chicago Cubs die-hard, Bass was introduced at an early age to the hard-swinging, vertebrae-jarring pendulum of emotions inherent in sports fandom.

“I was just a kid,” the Illinois native begins, “but in 1969, the Cubs were ahead by like eight or nine games toward the end of the season and then just had a massive collapse while the New York Mets had this incredible run, and it just tore me up. It was heartbreaking for me.”

Yes, Raiders fans, Bass has felt your pain.

And he’s here to help.

New career, new profession

After ending a long tenure in journalism in cities including Cincinnati,

Ohio, and St. Paul, Minnesota, Bass embarked on a new career: sports fan coach.

Never heard of it?

Neither had Bass until he pioneered the profession.

It all began a few years ago when the sports website he was working for, Land of 10, dedicated to the Big Ten Athletic Conference, was shuttered.

Bass pivoted into the life coach industry before eventually merging his pedigree in sports with said field.

“I didn’t know exactly what I was going to do when I started,” he says of becoming certified by the International Coaching Federation, “but I’ve been dealing with sports fans my whole life, pretty much. I just thought that this is a group that could use it.” So, how does it work, exactly? “My role is to help to enhance people’s enjoyment of (sports) and ease the things that are getting in the way of it,” explains Bass, who can be reached at mikebasscoaching. com. “You’ve got to work through the emotions, because the emotions are real. Then, what do you want to do about it?

“Once you get past the anger, the frustration, the sadness, then it’s ‘What are the opportunities I have here? What am I grateful for?’ ” he adds. “It doesn’t mean all that other stuff goes away. It’s ‘This is my world right now, what do I want to do about it?’ ”

As an example, Bass cites his recent work with a New Orleans Saints devotee.

“She could not get past the dreaded pass interference no-call of a couple of years ago,” he says, referencing the team’s crushing loss to the Los Angeles Rams in the 2018 NFC championship game. “It got to the point where every time she’d watch a Saints game, she would just be waiting for the referees to do something to screw it up. It was affecting her joy of it.

“We worked on what’s worked for her in the past when she’s been in stressful situations like that,” he continues. “What’s a different way to reframe this? Sometimes it’s putting it into some kind of different perspective.”

At the core of it all is the psychology of the sports fan, for whom the connection to their favorite squads can run canyon-deep.

“It really becomes part of our identity,” Bass explains. “You grow this attachment with that team. You don’t say, ‘They won,’ you say, ‘We won.’ It’s almost like a family member — as are the fellow fans. It’s this common denominator that everybody feels.”

Enduring a black-and-blue year for the silver and black

For Raiders fans dealing with the aftermath of an up-and-down season, Bass recommends asking yourself a few questions.

“What were some of the highs of the season that you walk away from it with?” he says. “When they win, all of this will come into a different perspective. What will it mean for you to have experienced this for when they do win?”

Besides, just having the Raiders here qualifies as a win for many.

“This is all about the experience, and it’s an incredible experience: the identity, the community, the connection,” Bass says. “With what we’ve all gone through in the last year, where connection has been so hard when we can’t get together with family and friends, here you have this football team that’s connecting people in Las Vegas.

“It’s a wonderful thing — until it’s not wonderful,” he adds. “And that’s where I come in.”

Mike Bass

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