I've loved sports all my life; I started playing soccer at age 3, and was a three sport athlete all the way through high school. My love for athletics includes not only playing, but also watching. I've grown up with SportsCenter on the TV, and spent an inordinate and possibly unhealthy amount of time watching sports, and sports discussion, and sports analysis, and so on. I've always been quick to defend athletics against those who disparage athletes as "dumb jocks" or meatheads, and I still take offense to those stereotypes.
Now I'm not going to lie and say that I've never overreacted to a loss by one of my favorite teams, because anybody who sees my twitter feed knows that would make me possibly the biggest hypocrite in the world, and definitely somewhere in the top 5. I love sports for the emotion, for the passion, and for the sheer incredulity I feel when I watch. The hard thing about being a fan is caring so deeply for something and wanting something to happen so badly, and not being able to do a single thing about it.
I'm a fan of the Washington Redskins. I grew up about 15 minutes from FedEx Field, and have been watching the Redskins my whole life. As you can tell from my twitter feed, I'm pretty emotionally invested in the Redskins. HOWEVER, I don't work for them. I have absolutely nothing to do with if the Redskins win, if the Redskins lose, or if the Redskins decided that they want Pizza Hut instead of Papa Johns postgame. None of those things have anything to do with me. So why do I let them effect me? Why do I place emotion in something that I can't control? Why do I celebrate victories like I had a part, and mourn losses the same way? Why do I use the "we" when discussing the Redskins?
To answer that, I'll look at another football team I'm a fan of: The University of Alabama Crimson Tide. Now to understand why I love Alabama football, you have to look a little deeper. When I was applying to colleges my senior year, Alabama wasn't really on my radar, and it definitely wasn't on my friends'. "Why would you want to go to school in Alabama, they're all racist down there" said friends and classmates, using the same generalizations that they accuse Alabamians of using. So when I decided to come to Alabama, I needed something that I could point to, and tell my friends, classmates, teachers, and even parents "Here. Here's something at Alabama that you can't get anywhere else." That something is football, and not just the team, but the culture. Football really does pervade every aspect of life down here, especially in the fall. As a life-long sports fan, I was thrilled as could be. However, I've realized there's a downside to excessive fandom.
It's frustrating watching the games, since it’s something you care deeply about, and at the same time something you can do nothing about. While I love watching Alabama football games, I know that my watching on TV has absolutely no effect on the outcome. And while I've rarely felt more excited than while in Bryant-Denny Stadium, I know that individually, I don't matter.
"Yes Daniel, we get it, now what does that have to do with anything? Like, do you even have a point?"
Yes I do! My point is that y'all gotta chill. Now this post is clearly inspired by last week's Iron Bowl, in which we saw a familiar cycle:
Step 1: Player (usually a kicker, or a goalkeeper, or a pitcher, or some other individualistic position) messes up, usually in a big game.
Step 2: People who have no affiliation with the team, or school, or whatever blast him
Step 3: People get more and more worked up, until some dumbass threatens to life, family, etc... of the player
Step 4: rational people gather around the person, rarely older than 21 or 22, and support him.
Step 5: ESPN or Yahoo Sports runs an article about death threats to this guy
Step 6: #wesupport____ hashtag trends on twitter
Step 7: fanbase congratulates themselves on being such an amazing and supportive group of people
Step 8: everyone forgets about it.
This is a pretty common cycle. Athletes in every professional sport, and sometimes not even professional, recieve death threats. I challenge you to come up with one that hasn't. Eli Manning, a two-time super bowl winning quarterback received death threats after a single bad performance. Cade Foster, a key part of two national championship teams, got death threats after a single bad game. In the 30 for 30 special on Miami football, athletes recall being threatened over the result of a high school game.
Wait.
Hold up.
This is really a thing?
What the fuck?
I love sports. I think they're amazing, and I think that everyone should play a sport at some point in their life. However, I think there's a point where you have to step back, and realize that at their core, sports are just games. Games that we've attached meaning to, sure. Games that people care about, absolutely. But you have to have that moment where you consider that maybe, just maybe, somebody's life is more important than a game.
"But Daniel, if sports are just a game, why do so many people care?"
I'm not really sure. It might be because people love to watch sports, and putting an emotional investment into something makes it more interesting to watch. It might be because they're a source of pride, a way to get bragging rights over a rival college or city. It could be because people love watching others work their hearts out and try their hardest. It's probably a combination of all of that, and even more.
So don't stop cheering for your favorite team. Don't stop wearing your favorite player's jersey. Hell, don't even stop screaming at your TV. But do stop when you get to the point where your actions have an effect on other people. Stop when you think about threatening someone, behind the tough-guy veil of a twitter account. Stop before you break things, stop before you insult people. Take a second and think.
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