Hmmm, not sure I've ever invested so fully as to have that.
I've lived away from Madison since college. I had a job with a lot of weekend work, so I've not been to a UW game since then.
As the years have gone on, I've mellowed ... to a degree. Football has less ability to ruin my day. And usually only once a season. I've become more accepting of the losses to good teams. Better at turning off games if I sense it's gonna suck. Lotta ways to catch up. I started up attending games with local alums when I can, which has been nice to a degree.
Basketball has been more of a struggle. The games get me more antsy. I think this year was irksome in a way, but even at the start of the year, I thought they'd be fringy. This year was special in ways they eff it up, then come back just enough.
At some point, a long time ago, I made peace with the idea that winning anything enormous would be more found money than something coming to them. So I try to cherish the wins, hope for the best. I had trouble feeling the same as Brad did, say about his football team. My team is gonna fight, have some good years, etc. Basketball is more up and down, but they've only had five seeds higher than 4, that's produced two great runs, two flameouts that you could see coming (the first was when I was much younger and just drained me) and one mid-level run that felt bad in the moment, but looks fine in retrospect.