Confessions of a Gator hater

I feel bad saying it now.

I hated Joakim Noah.

I understand that hate is a strong word and that throwing it around as a sports fan (even worse, in a sports column) is inappropriate.

I know that Noah is probably a nice enough young man and that he never intended to hurt me so dearly by stomping on UCLA’s national title hopes in two consecutive seasons.

Yet a part of me felt OK about hating him. Maybe that’s part of being a sports fan, I said to myself. Maybe there are teams (Duke, the New England Patriots, the Yankees dynasty or post-2004 Red Sox) that are supposed to be hated.

Will Blythe may have described this situation best. His memoir on the Duke-North Carolina rivalry titled “To Hate Like This Is to Be Happy Forever” conveys my quandary: It’s a battle between the beast in me and the journalist in me.

On this one, the beast won.

Noah tortured the Bruin faithful, and I hated him for it. The 2006 Gator team was perfect, built on the dominating presence of Noah and forward Al Horford inside and absolutely deadly perimeter shooting. For Bruin fans it felt like an impossible, essentially unfair opponent. And of all the Gators, Noah reveled in his team’s indomitable play the most. He even taunted our cheerleaders.

And that was just 2006 ““ the first time around.

Heading into the 2007 NCAA Tournament, I felt like all other 64 teams were just going through the motions. In the back of my mind I worried that all the dedication of fans around the country was for naught because Noah’s Gators were simply unbeatable.

I was pretty much right about that, and after it all I pinned my dismay on Noah, and I didn’t forgive him when he finally left school and the Chicago Bulls drafted him.

But then I read the alarming stories on Monday about Noah’s recent troubles.

He had been suspended for one game after an altercation with a Chicago Bulls assistant coach. His teammates voted to add a game onto the suspension, so the gregarious Noah was forced to sit again.

The Chicago Tribune reported that the vote was unanimous.

Here’s what Noah told the Associated Press:

“They just told me what I did was unacceptable and I’m just going to move on from here. I’ve just got to accept it. What do you want me to say? I’ve just got to move on. There’s nothing I can do about it.”

All of a sudden the formerly pompous Noah sounds like a kid in the principal’s office. He must be a little bit embarrassed and ashamed. He sure sounds like it, anyway.

The Bulls reached the conference finals last season, and Noah was supposed to add depth to a team that would contend for a conference title.

Things haven’t gone according to plan, though. Almost immediately, coach Scott Skiles and Noah butted heads. In December, Skiles lost his job. Now the Bulls are 14-21. They’ve lost more games than Noah did in an entire career at Florida, and it’s only January.

It has to be hard for Noah, who was known to relish his stature on the Gainesville, Fla., campus. He’s on a different plane every few nights, and his teammates, at least for now, are turned against him.

As much as I hated and vilified him as the Bruins’ nemesis, I feel just a little bit of pity now. Fueled by all that hatred, Noah developed a personality at Florida that was too loud and too big for an NBA rookie to flaunt.

I wanted Noah to struggle as a rookie. I thought he had it coming. But I never hoped it would be this bad. Noah is an official prima donna, his teammates don’t like him, and he’s not winning basketball games.

Maybe, just maybe, he’ll bounce back.

And maybe I’ll find a way not to root against him.

E-mail Allen at sallen@media.ucla.edu if you suspect that some of Noah’s teammates are UCLA fans.

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