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Let's face it, we all have a list.

It doesn't matter how old you are: You have a list.

You'll tell your wife you don't care what you get for Christmas. That you're too old for the holidays. That the days of checking under the tree on Christmas morning have been behind you for decades.

But secretly, you want something. Maybe even a few things.

You do.

Personally, I would like a year's supply of ribeye steaks and bacon. Believe me, I would figure out a way to make it work in my freezer.

But since I'm not going to get them, I'll make do by offering up my Christmas Wish List as a Gamecock fan. It's not a fully complete list, and I probably needed to check it twice. But if Santa Claus is real, I'd love to receive the following for the holidays:

Whew, have the first 20 or so days of the Will Muschamp Era been rejuvenating or what? Not only did Muschamp's staff offer a host of new players (many of whom said they were excited to hear from South Carolina and hadn't done so until now), and not only did they lock down the team's most important recruits (I see you, Brandon McIlwain), but this group actually issued a Magna Carta of sorts explaining to SC high school coaches that going forward, they would actively recruit this state's best players and wanted to repair relations in the state's high schools.

Refreshing? Yes.

Exciting? Yes.

Something we shouldn't have to be doing in 2015 as the flagship university in this state? Well, we're doing it anyway.

Let's definitely give the inaugural "I Would Like to Apologize" Award to Muschamp and his staff working overtime to bolster in-state relationships. Shall we pass it to the late, great Paul Newman (who married a woman from my hometown of Greenville, SC) for emphasis? Yes, we shall.

Do you follow this duo on Twitter? You should.

These guys actually make me feel better on a daily basis. I'm serious.

It doesn't seem to matter what happens with their teams, or with wins and losses (although there have only been lots of wins for each of them in recent weeks). They keep their heads up, stay focused and look to the future - no matter what.

I don't know either of them personally.

But following them on Twitter, I feel like I do. I'm almost over-confident that if I met either person, I could carry on a lively, interesting conversation with them.

That's partly because they're wildly personable and reveal their hopes, dreams and plans with all of us on a daily basis via Twitter (and partly because I have a ridiculous and perhaps misguided belief that I could carry on a lively and interesting conversation with anyone).

There were a few former Gamecock coaches in different sports who often Tweeted slogans, Bible verses and "uplifting statements" on social media. Nothing against those guys and I know they meant well, but the missives often rang hollow (just as they do when your old high school acquaintances try to push out "meaningful" quotes on Facebook that have no feeling whatsoever behind them).

It felt forced.

With Martin and Staley, nothing feels forced - not press conferences, not statements on social media, not videos or messages to the fans, not anything.

Even through the depths of losing (which both coaches have endured at USC), they've stayed the course, continued to push out a positive message about their programs and encouraged fans to get behind them.

I'm not sure I can ever remember liking any Gamecock coaches on a personal level more than I like those two (other than Ray Tanner). Even if they ended up failing here (and they won't), I still feel like I'd have a lasting admiration for them.

Sometimes Twitter actually can be beneficial.

To commemorate the moment, I think we should hand it over to future President of the United States Will Smith, who eloquently tells us to never give up, especially when it comes to basketball:

We've got a small crisis in my home.

My wife - my longtime supporter and the one person in the entire Solar System who has actually been able to understand my ridiculous mood swings and meltdowns related to USC athletics - just doesn't seem to care anymore. She's given up. We have, indeed, lost her.

Look, we know this football season was bad. OK, it was really, really bad.

But as Gamecock fans, we've seen all this before, right?

Apparently not.

We were driving back to Atlanta the other day after a weekend in Greenville, and passed a huge pickup truck with a preposterously large Florida Gator logo on its rear window.

"You see that guy?" she shouted. "That guy is laughing at you right now for hiring the coach that couldn't win at his school. HE IS LAUGHING AT YOU!!!!!"

Yikes.

We might need to get her into some type of scarred fan therapy group. She's still not handling this Muschamp thing well.

Not only that, but she annually works hard to win the coveted Gamecock Christmas tree ornament in a family Christmas gift swap. She got one….and said derisively, "Just what we need…another Gamecock ornament."

Wait, it gets worse.

When we were getting ready to drive to Greenville last Saturday morning for some Christmas parties, I casually mentioned that I was excited that Frank Martin's boys had defeated Clemson in our hometown of Greenville the night before, and that the crowd had virtually turned the proceedings into a USC home game.

"I don't care about basketball and neither does anyone else," she huffed, walking out of the room.

You see what I'm dealing with around here? This 3-9 football season has permanently marked this sweet young lady. We might need Dawn and Frank to bombard her with positive Tweets on a daily basis.

She needs a hug and needs to affirm her love for this university, which is why we need give it to the boys from Superbad:

Like many of you, I genuinely care about South Carolina baseball.

And it's not just because it's the only sport where we've consistently been good.

It's also because I spent a couple of million spring evenings sitting at Sarge Frye Field watching the Gamecocks look incredibly mediocre on a daily basis - but I still cared. It's also because baseball was the sport I played growing up, and the only one where I showed any semblance of athletic ability (I was a classic "great fielder, poor hitter" as a youngster, and I still defy you to try to hit one past me at second base).

Something about our baseball renaissance under Ray Tanner just felt right.

Don't get me wrong - I want to win the SEC in football and basketball and equestrian and beach volleyball and everything else.

But our fans, for whatever reason, have always supported the baseball team - at times almost outlandishly so. No one really knows why, but we care about the game, even though just about no other college fans do.

It almost made too much sense that it was the one sport where our teams actually succeeded.

The Baseball Gamecocks haven't been bad the last couple of years - they just haven't been particularly good, and there's been nothing about them that would set them apart from 50 or 60 programs in the NCAA.

I hope that changes.

For me, there's just nothing like those spring Saturday afternoons, when it's finally getting warm, and the rain ends and the azaleas are wild with color, and the girls are in sundresses and the boys in shorts for the first time in weeks, and the Gamecocks are laying it down against SEC foes, and the stadium is almost shaking and every single pitch is a moment in which we all might live or die.

I'd like for those moments to return to Columbia.

So would you.

We all, deep down, love baseball, even if we don't want to admit it in 2015. Don't believe me? Well, Roy Hobbs says hi:

No matter where you are or how you're spending the holiday, I wish you a great Christmas and an utterly amazing 2016. As for the Gamecocks, it feels like things are getting better all the time, doesn't it?

It does.

Here's to a year to remember.