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Bass: Goodbye and thank you. I will see you later

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4 months ago

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Bass: Goodbye and thank you. I will see you later

Mike Bass
 |  mbass@mikebasscoaching.com

The Reds are teetering as the trade deadline approaches, the Bengals are opening training camp with Super Bowl aspirations, but today is the day for me to say goodbye.

Or at least goodbye for now.

Today will be my last regular column for the Enquirer.

I teach, coach and preach change, and I see this is an opportunity to take a break and then integrate my column into my blog, The Coach’s Box, on my website, MikeBassCoaching.com. I have loved our time together right here for almost four years, and I choose to embrace this moment with gratitude.

Which is why I am smiling.

I am forever grateful to The Enquirer and sports editor Jason Hoffman for bringing me back 18 years after I had left, and for standing by me as long as they did. This was an experiment, writing as the first certified professional coach to specialize in helping you as fans, and it worked.

“Everyone else in sports has coaches,” I wrote in my introductory column. “Head coaches. Assistant coaches. Position coaches. Performance coaches. Mental-skills coaches. Why not you?”

I am especially grateful to you. This only worked because we pioneered together. You were open and honest, often sharing from a distance on social media where fans congregate unfiltered today. We looked at the research and at what works for you, to enhance your fandom and feed your passion without losing yourself.

We moved beyond theory. We test drove. We didn’t have to be perfect. We could learn from what didn’t work and replicate what did. I tried to channel Ted Lasso and be curious and not judgmental. You taught me as much as I taught you, so I could better understand and support you.

We lived through a lot these last four years. With the Reds, there was the fire sale and 100 losses and the lockout and “Where are you gonna go” and the rebuild and the rebound and Joey Votto and Elly De La Cruz and a lifetime of faith and decades of despair.

We lived through the University of Cincinnati ascending in one kind of football and FC Cincinnati rising in another, through UC and Xavier descending in basketball until X had a moment in 2023, through sports cards resurging and stadiums socially distancing.

Primarily, we lived through all things Bengals together.

It began with Joe Burrow being carted off for the rest of his rookie year and you trying to deal with the rest of the day.

“You ever been kicked in the (groin) really hard?” @NatiBoyDan tweeted. “And then, while you’re writhing around on the ground in pain, your wife comes up to you and says that she wants a divorce and the kid you’ve been raising as your own isn’t yours? It was like that, only worse.”

And yet somewhat familiar, all part of a Lost Era that began when I was there. Only now, you had a better forum to vent. You as Bengals fans are particularly active on social media, and you were the first to regularly engage with me. For that, I am deeply appreciative.

In time, you adopted me on Twitter/X, making me feel like one of you and turning me into exactly that. I was so captivated by the on-field turnaround in 2021, and living it with you, that I declared myself a Bengals fan for at least the rest of the season. Who Dey! Who me?

Some of you welcomed me. Some of you blistered me, demanding a lifetime pledge. What an unintended gift all this was – a chance to explore the notion of what a real fan is. It is an illusion. Even the gatekeepers can’t agree. The only definition that matters is yours.

I was now a Bengals fan. And what a finish we experienced that season. The playoffs. The burden-shedding first postseason win. The Super Bowl berth. The pleasure sweetened by the years of torment.

“It meant so much to watch the games with my dad as a kid,” @Eversole_23 tweeted in the leadup to the game. “And it’s means so much more to be able to be the one buying our tickets now and take him to the games!”

You grieved with me after the Super Bowl, sharing your genuine sense of loss so you could face it before you could let it go. Did you let it go? What if you didn’t? What did you do with it? Does it feed your fandom or haunt you?

To me, the moment that best defines you came the next season. The Damar Hamlin game. The NFL left you cruelly uninformed after you witnessed a traumatic event. You did not know how to cope, yet many of you led with your decency and humanity by embracing Bills fans as extended family. We gathered on Twitter the next day to share and console and validate, because whatever you felt was what you were supposed to feel and you needed a safe place to express it and know you were not alone.

Your mental and emotional health matter to me.

You matter to me.

You get so much out of sports, win or lose, but it can get to you sometimes. That makes you normal. You were willing to explore the highs and lows the last four years.

That makes you special to me.

Please keep in touch. Keep interacting with me on my X account, @sportsfancoach1, and I will keep you updated there with my latest work and any other developments.

I still might show up here again for an occasional cameo, if the situation dictates. Maybe if the Bengals do get back to the Super Bowl.

So instead of goodbye, let’s just say goodbye for now.

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