Measuring stick for Fresno needs adjustment

The more I think about Fresno's poor self-esteem, the more I'm convinced I've uncovered the cause.

It's our measuring stick.

Take, for example, how we envy our California neighbors. We look one direction and we see Los Angeles, a world-class city. We look another direction and we see San Francisco, another world-class city.

Fresno, despite everything that's good about it, and there's a lot, is never going to be those cities. It's just not. So it's unfair that we measure our city against them. It's that kind of thinking that's led to our inferiority complex, the myth that "Fresno sucks" and there's nothing to do here.

Is there as much to do in Fresno as there is in San Francisco? No. But there are plenty of good things to do in Fresno.

In an odd way, I couldn't help but watch this week's Pat Hill ordeal unfold and think about Fresno and how it so often grabs the wrong measuring stick.

Whether Hill should have been fired or not is a moot point now. It's done. His team had a poor season, which made the decision to end an often-tumultuous relationship easier.

But the Hill saga – particularly the part where the city largely turned on a coach it held in esteem for many years – is a fascinating prism through which we can examine Fresno, its expectations and its (perceived) shortcomings.

There's no debating that Fresno State got a good deal with Hill – 15 seasons, 11 of them where his team went to a bowl game. That wasn't enough for some fans. But it's still good. Trust me, I went to San Jose State – we'd love that run.

In his waning years, however, Hill seemed to draw the same ire from his critics that our city gets from its unhappy citizens.

He wasn't doing enough. Not when fans looked around the conference and saw Boise State, its extraordinary (and repeated) run to the near top of the college football ranks. Boise State, however, was the exception to the rule, not the rule.

Did Hill do as much for Fresno State as his counterparts did for Boise? No. But he still did plenty of good.

For some fans, the ones with the grandiose measuring sticks, it wasn't enough.

Just like some Fresnans believe our city as a whole doesn't measure up – despite some of the cooler stuff here, such as our art scene, our homegrown festivals, our mom-and-pop restaurants, our cool local bands, the Tower District.

Sometimes you just have to be realistic. That's not to say you have to accept mediocrity, but perhaps you should accept "good enough."

If your older brother is a genius, you can't hate yourself for being a B student.

If you're a woman and you compare yourself to nothing but supermodels, of course you're going to feel inadequate.

The grass is always going to look greener somewhere else. That's true whether you live in Fresno or Boise.

But if we use the right measuring stick, we might find that what we have is good enough – whether that's a football coach, or our city as a whole.