...I opined that a post penned by Rubik543 read like an excerpt from a Philip Roth novel. So I got to thinking. How might the late American bard relate the potential firing of DeShaun Foster? Perhaps it would read as follows:
Relief. Yes, relief. That’s the word. The sigh that begins in the upper deck of the Rose Bowl and rattles down through the aluminum bleachers, out the tunnels, across the tailgates where the brisket has long since dried, into the living rooms where the alumni have surrendered their Saturdays to despair. A collective sigh, the communal exhale of people who have been holding their breath through every third-and-long since Foster first donned the headset.
The fans—poor souls, God bless them—will finally have permission to unclench. For years they have lived in a purgatory where hope was not permitted but masochism was mandatory. A touchdown? Too soon. A field goal? Too little. A win? Too rare. Every week the same torture: loyalty as disease, fandom as slow death. And Foster, with his chains, his glint, his swagger—yes, he gave them “culture.” But culture without competence is mere decoration.
The alumni, those long-suffering partisans of yesteryear, will at last find their Saturdays bearable again. They were there for Cade, for Aikman, for Mo. They remember. And what they remember, compared to what they endure now, is like the difference between a Broadway premiere and community theater in a church basement. These alumni—they have given money, time, devotion. But devotion curdles into ridicule. Foster’s firing, they believe, will uncurl the lip of fate.
The hoped-for NIL donors—the wary plutocrats of Westwood—might finally loosen their grip on their checkbooks. For what sense is there in pledging six figures to a man whom the players regard less as a field general than as a walking boutique, a merchant of shine in an era when too many equate “Coach” with handbags and bling? The program does not need a jeweler; it needs a commander. It needs discipline, authority, strategy. Foster was none of these, a liability cloaked in luxury sportswear. His firing? Liberation. At last, the donors can fund recruits without feeling they are subsidizing a parody of leadership. Win first. Bling will follow.
And what of Foster himself? Poor DeShaun. He will be relieved most of all. No longer the public’s punching bag, no longer the embodiment of decline, no longer the subject of boos that echo louder than cheers. He can go home. He can take off the headset, pawn the chains, and remember the game as it was when he played it, not as he mis-coached it. Relief for him, too—a reprieve from the delusion that this was his calling.
Relief, then, is the word. For the fans, for the alumni, for the donors, the players, the media, even for Foster himself. Relief like the first cool wind after a smoggy August. Relief like slipping free of a too-tight shoe. Relief like finding out the ache in your chest is only heartburn, not a heart attack.
UCLA football will still be flawed, imperfect, human. But it will be free. Free at last from the misrule of DeShaun Foster, who promised a renaissance and delivered a requiem.
Relief, relief, relief.