The spirit of sports
It’s just a game.
Any athlete, coach or sports fan in general has heard this countless times. Why are you so upset? It’s not like somebody died.
But as the game clock winds down and your team is sure to lose, that lead weight hits you in the stomach with enough force to knock you off your feet. And that’s when you tell yourself; no, it’s not just a game.
Sports attitudes like this often receive the typical eye rolling and other exasperated responses from people who could not care less who wins a game. It is seen as a waste of time.
But even columnist Bill Simmons, the greatest sports writer of our time, and the one who so perfectly puts into words what sports fans feel, can’t describe it. After the Patriots (for whom Simmons is a die-hard fan) lost in Super Bowl XLVI and he tried to put his reaction into words, he wrote the day after, “I have never been able to answer the question, ‘Why does this matter to me so much?’ That’s just the way it’s always been. Ever since I can remember.”
Every sports fan feels the same way.
Because the spirit of sports doesn’t reside in the game itself. It doesn’t exist in the most basic purpose of almost every sport: score more points than the other team.
In basketball, players toss a ball inside a circle as the opposing team tries to get in the way. In soccer, players wait for that one opportunity to kick a ball inside a frame. In football, players throw around an oddly shaped object, trying to catch it in a certain marked zone on the field.
When put this simply, sports seem silly and inconsequential, merely an outlet for aggression and an obsessive, money-driven part of our society. So why does it matter so much?
Yet as Tom Brady’s Hail Mary pass was batted down by the underdog Giants and fell clear of Gronkowski’s outstretched fingers, millions of fans cheered. As IU’s Christian Watford hit that game-winning three against No. 1 Kentucky, and again as IU defeated then-No. 2 OSU on New Year’s Eve, thousands of Hoosiers celebrated the return of Indiana basketball, quickly popularizing the hashtag #themovement. And as the Division-II UIndy Greyhounds tore through four nationally ranked basketball teams in a matter of weeks, a small school of just over 5,000 students reveled in their success.
This permeates every level of sports. While The Olympics are watched by millions of people around the world, college sports are viewed by only thousands. However, sometimes the worst team in the smallest league can still incite inspiration in the few people watching. At that moment in time, it still represents a group of people overcoming an impossible obstacle.
The spirit of sports is not in the game itself, but in the people surrounding the game. It’s the players, the coaches, the fans, the schools, the cities and the countries that stand behind that team. It’s the atmosphere that is created by these people who give so much of themselves for the benefit of others.
Because when athletes lose a game, they can feel the emotions from the fans. There is an aesthetic feeling that surrounds the atmosphere of a sporting event; an intrinsic sense of pride, accomplishment and camaraderie that can’t be found anywhere else.
So when your team loses a game at any level, it’s more than just a game. It’s a shared feeling between hundreds, thousands or even millions of people who otherwise would have nothing in common.
“See, there’s no feeling quite like watching your team blowing a big game,” wrote Bill Simmons. “It’s devastating. It’s paralyzing. It’s the only feeling that a 6-year-old, a 42-year-old and a 64-year-old can share exactly.”
In an arena that holds thousands of strangers, each person can be feeling the same emotion at that moment. The same goes for households across a country that are watching the same game.
There’s no doubt that some areas in sports are overhyped. Just like everything else in a capitalist society, sports are another way for people to spend money: fan T-shirts, hats, signed jerseys, tickets to games—they all go toward the billion-dollar sports industry that dominates a large part of our society.
But from the beginning, before anybody ever thought to make money from sports, the same foundations existed. The spirit of sports began with a relationship between the people, and that will never go away. You cannot find another place where so many strangers experience the same shared emotions consistently. So although it may be just a game, to those of us who get it, sports will always be a part our core.
And as March Madness approaches, we will celebrate the triumphs and defeats and share the despair of the losses together.
