Remember back when you were a high school senior, scouring the sea of academia for the university that would be your perfect match?
Sure, you wanted a school with nice weather and beautiful women that provides a quality secondary education. The big kicker most everyone wants is to have a successful sports program - one that promises to win more than find excuses for losing.
That's why you're a Wildcat.
If you're a senior, then your arrival on campus marked the end of a time when Arizona perennially earned top-10 status in the Sports Academy Directors' Cup - an award given to the top athletic program in the country, based upon where each team finishes in its respective postseason competitions.
Arizona finished no lower than ninth in these standings from the 1993-1994 school year through 2001-2002.
However, the Wildcat athletics machine has dropped out of the top 10 in the past three years, finishing No. 16, No. 12 and No. 18, respectively.
During these athletic dark ages of the past few years, Arizona has failed to win a single national championship, a feat students from the past decade could bank on from softball alone. The school has not won a title since Jennie Finch led the Arizona softball dynasty to the title in Omaha, Neb., in 2001.
During those golden years, it used to be that every four-year student would be promised a softball championship, as well as witness a trip to the men's basketball Final Four.
With softball titles in 1991, 1993, 1994, 1996, 1997 and 2001, and men's basketball Final Four appearances in 1994, 1997 and 2001, including the national championship in Arizona's overtime victory over Kentucky, our student body became spoiled. Winning became every bit as much of an Arizona student's college experience as waking up around noon and facing a refrigerator barren, save for leftover pizza and half a bottle of water.
The championship woes continued last year, when former men's basketball players Salim Stoudamire and Channing Frye failed to make it past the Elite Eight, and softball seniors Jackie Coburn and Crystal Farley could not help to raise another banner on National Championship Drive.
What happened?
While softball has become more competitive outside of the dominant Pacific 10 Conference, thus making recruiting tougher, things would have been different for both clubs with a few lucky bounces.
Both teams experienced disappointing results in 2004, when softball failed to reach the Women's College World Series for the first time since 1987, the year many current freshmen were born, and men's basketball self-destructed against Seton Hall in the first round of March Madness.
A couple of timely World Series hits this year might have given the softball team at least one more national title, while basketball has had to think about Elite Eight heartbreakers to Kansas in 2003, and dare I mention it, Illinois just this March.
A measly 3-pointer drained here and a foul called there could have made up the difference between this so-called dry spell and three Final Four trips in five years.
Still, most of the country's athletic departments would do anything for a "drought" like ours in men's basketball and softball.
If you want an actual drought, look to the gridiron.
The past three years of football futility have seen Wildcats fans suffer through at least eight losses each of the past three years en route to a 9-26 combined record.
On the bright side, two sleeping giants have awoken from their slumber the past few years in baseball and soccer.
Baseball head coach Andy Lopez transformed the program into an annual contender with College World Series aspirations, while getting eight players from last year's squad drafted into the ranks of Major League Baseball in June.
Lopez has led Arizona to the last three baseball postseason tournaments, including a College World Series berth in 2004, after the program had not reached postseason play in consecutive years since the 1992 and 1993 seasons.
Having never won more than eight soccer games, and only two in conference play, last year's women's squad tallied 15 victories, including eight in the conference to tie for the Pac-10 title.
Despite falling in the first round of the NCAA College Cup last season, the formerly listless program has become a force to be reckoned with nationally.
Things are looking up for the 2005-2006 Wildcats to get back in the top 10 of the Directors' Cup standings, as optimism abounds across the athletic department.
Men's basketball always makes the NCAA Tournament (21 straight trips) and has the talent to make a title run. Softball should return to its June home at the College World Series, where senior pitcher Alicia Hollowell and company have a legitimate shot at putting Arizona back on top with another championship.
The women playing volleyball and soccer all enter the season nationally ranked and may be joined by women's basketball later in the year.
Lopez has brought another outstanding recruiting class that makes baseball a threat to reach the College World Series, and football head coach Mike Stoops even has fans thinking about a bowl berth, as crazy as that sounds.
But even if early season excitement turns to heartbreak by season's end, remember that it could always be worse.
You could be a Sun Devil.