I doubt many Oakland Raiders fans were happy with just being there.

When you put your spirit into a favorite sports team, heartbreak is inevitable. Competition is constructed to do just that — break the heart.

As sports fans we’re continually frustrated and let down by our favorite teams. Still, without suffering through seasons of dissatisfaction, one would never realize just how special it is to win a championship.

Throughout the season, you count on watching your heroes rise to impossible heights, you come to expect high-fives from complete strangers when the remarkable has been accomplished, and then, like a child’s summer, it ends abruptly.

Just when you need it the most, the game is gone and so is your release from everyday life.

Roughly one out of every 30 professional teams wins a championship. In college sports, the numbers become drastically worse. Therefore, no matter what happens in a season the odds are you will be disappointed in the end.

Sounds pretty unfair, yet we continue to come back year after year to be disappointed.

A genuine love for a favorite team is one of the biggest commitments anyone can make. You must take your team for better or for worse, in sickness or in health, until death do you part (or if they move away).

Your team has the ability to change your mood with a dazzling dunk or a single swing of the bat. Your day can be made with a victory, but a heart is broken with any prominent loss.

The problem is that heartbreak always seems to last much longer than the euphoria of a win. If your team wins a big game you run around hugging strangers for an hour or two until you focus your thoughts on the next game.

Losing, however, can stay with you for quite awhile.

Thoughts of what could have been will fill your head for the next few days. Days turn into weeks; weeks turn into months, until, finally, that feeling like you’re being punched in the stomach begins to fade away.

A bad loss could stick with you for years, even decades. Just ask Red Sox fans how they feel about Bill Buckner and his Game 6 error, which cost Boston the 1986 World Series.

Here in the Northern California we have our own recurring nightmares about past disappointments. Raiders fans become violent at any mention of the tuck rule.

Kings fans become disgusted when reminded about Game 7 free throw shooting.

And a Giants fan cringes whenever the terms clutch, or bullpen, are mentioned.

Still, even winning can be a disappointment.

Bragging rights, sure, but do fans actually get anything? So much hype, tons of excitement, all of the nervousness, and then… nothing. All you can do is get ready for next year and pray your team has a shot at repeating.

Think of how disappointing it would be to win the championship and then watch the owner either dismantle the team or fail to make the improvements necessary to continue winning (i.e. 1997 Florida Marlins).

The journey far exceeds the arrival.

These disappointments are what make sports so great. Ask yourself, what’s more exciting: a World Series ring to a Giants fan or a Yankees fan?

How about an NBA Championship for the Kings rather than a fourth consecutive for the Lakers?

If every season was a winning one, the anticipation and anxiety of winning and losing would be crushed. The outcome would be too predictable, and as dull as watching an episode of “Cops” set in Pleasantville, USA.

In order to be let down by your favorite teams one must have hope. Hope is built around past greatness, or the prospect of a great future.

Sacramento State sports have yet to ever raise any championship expectations from its fans. Without expectations, it is hard to be too disappointed in Hornet athletics, and that is extremely unfortunate.

Sac State has trouble building a fan base because our athletics rarely build the championship expectations from our fans.

Until they give us reason to anticipate greatness, we can never feel the emotional joyride of disappointment.

Disappointment is a luxury that Northern California sports fans should feel lucky to have. We have high expecttions from the many great years of winning teams around us.

Years from now you’ll look back at all the disappointment the world of sports has given you. You will reminisce with friends and family about tough struggles and hard-to-swallow defeats.

You’ll miss that pain. As that’s what sports are truly about — passion and desire.

If you would like to respond to Jimmy Spencer’s column, please send e-mail to [email protected]