I genuinely, without a trace of irony, care about what happens to UMass football. It might seem dumb, and you can snicker and make jokes if you want, but that tends to happen when you go there and are college football obsessed. I also don’t mind the jokes about UMass. I make them too. They’re easy.
The thing is, a bit of me is hurt by the jokes, even when I make them. When I was a student, a bit of me was always hurt when students didn’t move from the tailgate into the stadium. It stung when people who were supposed to support the program simply didn’t.