We do it to ourselves, folks

College-sports fans need to take a chill pill - OK, maybe we need to take out a prescription.
You know, so we can get the whole bottle.
We all want our coaches fired - well, maybe not if you're a UNC or Duke basketball fan, or Virginia Tech football fan.
Er, actually it hasn't been that long since Tech fans turned on Frank Beamer - remember that 6-0 start that turned into an 8-5 finish in 2003?
So yeah, even somebody like Beamer isn't above being almost being run out of town.
We all want championships - conference championships, national championships.
But guess what - only one team gets to win the ACC, and only one gets to be #1 in the country at the end of the year.
The odds are a little better that you can win a conference title - though one in 12 ain't exactly great odds.
Winning one of those national titles is a bit harder - you're talking one in 119 for football or one in 330-something for basketball, just for starters.
And since we're all wanting one of those, and all raising money for scholarships, and all raising money for new facilities, ad nauseam, it shouldn't be a surprise that most of the time (the vast majority of the time; 99.9 percent of the time) we fall short.
Which brings us back to how we all want our coaches fired. Sure, I understand that part of the pressure that we've all put on them results in them being paid gobs of money to bring home those titles that we so desperately want. So when they fall short, it's hard to feel too sorry for them - they still get the golden parachute out the door, after all.
No, I'm not defending them - I'm lamenting us.
It's us who keep our schools from being legitimate title contenders the way we want to railroad this coach or that coach after a year or two of not meeting our self-imposed out-of-this-world expectations.
Programs aren't built in a day - unless you're Bob Huggins at Kansas State, who was reportedly out recruiting players before he even knew what school he was going to be working at after being let go at Cincinnati.
It takes a few recruiting classes, a special win or two, a surprise bowl appearance or NCAA tournament run - and then the expectations can go through the roof.
It's gotten so out of whack these days that at my alma mater, the University of Virginia, the fans began talking excitedly about an NCAA tourney berth for this year's team because last year's team went 15-15.
You can guess what might happen next - if the program fails to live up to those lofty projections, the fans are going to grumble, and grumbling fans soon sour, and then ...
We do it to ourselves, folks - that's all I'm saying here.
- Chris Graham