Christmas came early this year for me, or maybe it's three decades late. But, if there was ever a holiday destination worth waiting for, the Bahamas Bowl is not a bad prize for a generation's worth of waiting. 

It's hard to imagine a bowl drought here in Oklahoma where the Sooners and the Cowboys have been postseason regulars.

However, try to imagine going 29 years between bowl games, then imagine going 20 years without a winning season. That's been the fate of my beloved Eastern Michigan University. In between bowl appearances, the school has had an acrimonious name change (from the unique "Hurons" to the run-of-the-mill, ho-hum "Eagles"), gone through 10 head coaches with the only coach with a winning record being an interim coach who went 2-1, had to deal with ax-grinding professors clamoring for the elimination of the football program and conference mates stiff-arming you to leave.

In other words, it hasn't been a lot of fun and there have been plenty of battle scars.

Following EMU though does give you perspective and you learn to handle losing. You also learn to root for your conference brethren in the Mid-American Conference, meaning you were rooting for the ultimate chip-on-your-shoulder conference from the perspective of the ultimate chip-on-your-shoulder program. You learned not to get your hopes up. Ever. Even last year, the Hurons/Eagles went 1-11 and nobody foresaw a bowl game happening in the near future, never mind the next season, and certainly never mind dreaming of the Bahamas.

But there they are all of a sudden. EMU went 7-5 and landed a bowl in paradise opposite 9-3 Old Dominion, becoming the turnaround story of the 2016 season. I still have to do a double-take when I see Eastern Michigan in the bowl game listings.

I would have been happy with a bowl game in Detroit or Mobile, Ala., it would have been easier and cheaper travel, but rest assured there was no way we were missing this bowl game. Not after three decades of heartache. So, off my wife and I are to Nassau, actually the second time in three years for this bowl game because we went and lived vicariously through hated rival Central Michigan in the inaugural Bahamas Bowl in 2014. Now, though, it's different. This is our team and is there any fan base — however small it had become through 20 years of losing seasons — that deserves it more?

Ironically, EMU now finds itself in a position to try to get the MAC its first bowl win of the season after Toledo went down in the Camellia Bowl and Central Michigan was pummeled by Tulsa in Miami. Talk about foreign territory.

Now, if you tune in on Friday at noon, don't expect to see a full house at Thomas A. Robinson National Stadium (ironically named after a University of Michigan track star). No, this game isn't about sell outs. But that doesn't make it any less meaningful, not when I think of all the kids who came to this program and those who, now, under third-year head coach Chris Creighton, stuck around and believed. They are living a moment few realistically could have expected, knowing they have done something no other squad has done in 29 years.

The last time EMU went bowling was in the 1987 California Bowl in Fresno, Calif. The underdog Hurons defeated the favored San Jose State Spartans 30-27 and a young, hopeful sports writer earned his first professional byline writing the preview for that game.

Now, that young writer is much older, much more jaded, severely follically challenged, but thankfully married to an incredibly patient woman who has tolerated many Saturday afternoons of shouting at the radio/TV/computer.

Following EMU football has been the embodiment of Nietzsche's most famous quote, proving indeed what doesn't kill you, makes you stronger.

Now, this team full of 18-21 year-olds is ending a dry spell that seemed like it would never end and the school in Ypsilanti, Mich., whose stadium sits just seven miles from that other school's stadium in Ann Arbor, is finally having its day in the sun, the glorious, Caribbean sun.

Break out the junkanoo music, because WE are bowling. And that sure felt good to write.

Ruthenberg is sports editor at the News & Eagle. Contact him at daver@enidnews.com.

Enid News.com

By Dave Ruthenberg Sports Editor