Category: Sports
The NBA Game Time Courside app looks fantastic. I’m already excited for the season to begin, and I’d be lying if I said part of it wasn’t because I want to see this app in action.
But, you guys, come on. Can’t we throw an off-season placeholder up there until the season begins?
Do we have to be reminded of this game?
That’s cold, man.
You’ve got to change it. Celtics Nation implores you.
Issues Considered: Basketball, Boston Celtics, Sports, Technology
It was Game Five of the NBA Finals. The series was tied at two games a piece, and the Lakers were making a run. Then, this play.
It was the single greatest play I’ve seen during these playoffs, and I was convinced that, with momentum, the Celtics had just cinched up a championship.
Two days later, it all came crashing down.
At some point during the Celtics’ demoralizing Game Six defeat this past Tuesday – around the time I had stopped watching in order to wash the dishes, run to the store for a frozen pizza, and drink a beer in smoldering frustration, my confidence crashing and doubt setting in after only two quarters of play – Kerrie asked me a simple question.
“Why do you watch sports?”
My answer: “I don’t know.”
The real answer, of course, is that we’re entertained by sports. We watch people do things we’re not able to do, performing on the highest level possible. And if we subscribe to the notion of home-town success, we probably claim allegiance to certain sports teams by proximity alone; when they win, the city wins.
The draw, though, becomes more than just entertainment – especially when you develop a fanatical connection to a team. I say “fanatical” because that’s what being a fan means. I say “fantatical” also, not because it’s negative, but because it’s totally enveloping – it turns the process of watching sports into a process of being part of the team.
Sports fans are no different than those who refuse to miss a favorite television show, who buy an author’s books the second they come out, or who spend over $50 on a concert ticket. They find solace in someone else’s success, and take personally their failures.
We root because we care. We care because we’re human.
This time around, it’s different for me. The Celtics are playing on borrowed time. They weren’t supposed to make it past the Cavaliers. Or the Magic. And they certainly weren’t supposed to be a game away from winning it all. They were left for dead, too old to compete, too banged up to make a splash, a shadow of their 2008 season.
But they did it. They beat the Cavs in six. They beat the Magic in six. And now, despite a monster setback in Tuesday’s game, they still sit just one game away from being champions.
For those of us who followed them from the beginning of the playoffs, each round has been an improbable lesson in faith and hard work, and though we all know that this last round is as improbable as any, we’ll still feel the sting if the C’s go down.
No matter what, tonight is the last day of the NBA season. No matter what, one team is going to walk out of the Staples Center a champion.
No matter what, this is it. Game Seven, NBA Finals, featuring the two biggest franchises – and the biggest rivalry – in the history of the league.
And, no matter what, I’ll be filled with emotion: the exact emotion, though, may not be understood until after the game is finished, be it frustration and disbelief or joy and pride.
I can’t help it. It’s why I watch sports.
Issues Considered: Basketball, Boston Celtics, Sports, Television
“There are many beautiful things about being an American fan of World Cup soccer—foremost among them is ignorance. The community in which you were raised did not gather around the television set every four years for a solid, breathless month. The U.S. has never won. You have not been indoctrinated into unwanted yet inescapable tribal allegiances by your soccer-crazed countrymen. You are an amateur, in the purest sense of the word. So when the World Cup comes around, you can pick whatever team you like best and root for them without shame or fear or reprisal—you can spend the month in paradise.”
-Sean Wilsey, The Thinking Fan’s Guide to the World Cup
This year, I feel like a traitor.
Four years ago, I didn’t. Because no one cared about soccer. No one cared about the world’s biggest game, so I could watch England stumble through the tournament like a toddler in new shoes in the relative comfort of my own home and know that I wasn’t performing some great act of terrorism, the black and white screen of our portable television reflecting a team allegiance, not a nation’s allegiance.
This year, though, it’s different.
This year, ESPN’s pushing World Cup ratings. Which means creating conflict. Which means overhyping matches that should be one-sided blow-outs in the name of promoting a rivalry that, really, for the most part, ended two centuries ago when the United States grew some balls and won a few wars.
Ask anyone. They think USA vs. England is a real match. They think the people who put USA’s odds of winning at 17% are just haters. HAY-TAHS, even.
They think this because the sports media is fighting hard to make World Cup soccer relevant. They’re duped by two examples of not-so-recent United States Brand™ upsets: the 1950 World Cup win over England and the 1980 Olympic hockey win over USSR. Two random occurrences, happening thirty years apart, and OH WOW, hey, this match is 30 years later too so there’s totally a correlation.
YOU GUYS. ONE OF THOSE ISN’T EVEN SOCCER.
So I know I’ll be rooting for England in silence. Not because I hate my country. Not because I hope the United States loses. Not because I am a bitter self-hating American that wants to champion contrarian irony.
No. It’s because I’ve followed England’s national team ever since a 2000 trip to England, because soccer is England’s sport, because I don’t believe in being tied to location when it comes to supporting sports teams, and because, really, there’s nothing forcing me NOT to support “the enemy.”
So I’m reminded of that quote above, from Sean Wilsey in the foreword of his wonderful collection, The Thinking Fan’s Guide to the World Cup. A quote I quoted and stuck to four years ago – one I used to justify my position, though, really, my position doesn’t deserve to be justified at all.
Go England. And Go United States.
But not until this match is over.
Most of us who call themselves part of Celtics Nation have been holding our breath as we await what’s been universally determined to be an easy series win for the Cavaliers.
The fact is, Celtics fans haven’t had a lot to be happy about this season. Doc Rivers continues to undercoach, Rasheed Wallace decided to only play half of the season, and our three Hall of Fame locks are beginning to look old. I mean really old. Keeper of the Crypt old.
So I continue to hold my breath. I don’t want to jinx this, you guys, and I truly believe that, if I say something with any kind of braggadocio, I’m going to screw things up; that LeBron will make a point to score 50 a game and, after dunking over the head of Kendrick Perkins, point to the camera and say “YOU THINK YOUR CELTICS ARE SOMETHING SPECIAL, COREY VILHAUER IN SIOUX FALLS SOUTH DAKOTA?”
“DO YOU?”
I do. But I won’t say it too loud. Except to remind everyone that, when ‘Sheed’s put out to pasture, when the “Big Three” are sizing their bronze plaques, when Doc Rivers is announcing games on TNT and we’re all left wondering where our championship aspirations drifted off to, we’ll still have Rajon Rondo.
I can’t stop watching it. Over. And over. And over again.
My hero.
Issues Considered: Basketball, Boston Celtics, Sports
South Dakota doesn’t have much in terms of professional sports. We have semi-professional sports, which can often be difficult to follow, thanks to the vagabond nature of minor league athletes. But we don’t have anything that can fill up a sports page, creating trends in conversation, a common ground among everyone.
Instead, we have the weather.
Which explains the local news’ insistence on covering an upcoming winter storm with the same pomp and gusto as a team of ex-athletes hyping the Super Bowl or the Olympics.
Our most popular local celebrity is a weatherperson, after all.
Willard Scott would be so proud.
Issues Considered: Sioux Falls, Sports
Today, despite the hard work of Peyton Manning and Marquis Colston, despite a 6-2 rally to end the season, despite a ridiculous season from a handful of throwaway players destined for the scrap heap, my fantasy football season ended.
I’d say prematurely, but as a #4 seed, facing a team that outscored the rest of the league by a couple hundred points, this was in the cards all along. Then again, it might be a blessing. After all, now – more than any time during the season – I can actually sit and enjoy a game of football.
Without the ancillary anxiety. Without the constant updates. Eyes straight ahead, focused on the game, mocking the commercials, filtering out the sarcasm.
We all keep score on something. We all spend some part of our lives measuring up against someone else, against the ideal, looking for quantitative data to prove our worth. But, when it comes down to it, that data proves nothing. It throws up smoke, much as Ben Wallace’s diminutive scoring undermined his talent on the basketball court.
I just switched sports on you, I know. But, you see, it’s all an exercise in not keeping score. Now that I have nothing left to play for, I can enjoy the art and spectacle that professional football is.
Take that metaphor, and you can probably attach it to whatever you want. Industry awards. Popularity lists. Elections. The old Favrd community.
I know, I know. Awards, championships, blah f’n blah. You play to win the game and all of that. But when you’re not playing by the same goals in the first place, you’ve got the freedom to weasel out the competitiveness and land on something more pure.
I guess it’s called “the love of the game.”
Issues Considered: Basketball, Football, Sports
It had been snowing for hours. I listened with rapt attention to the radio in my mother’s car. I was on my way to my father’s house; after spending most of the afternoon with my step-grandparents, I had finished with the dining portion of Thanksgiving and ready to settle into the “lazy, doing nothing” portion.
Though I’ve never considered football to be my favorite sport, on this day – at this time, three and a half quarters into the evening’s game – it was the only thing on my mind.
The game: Miami vs. Dallas, November 25, 1993.
A snow covered field. Drifting in through the stadium roof’s iconic rectangle hole, the snow added a new dimension to the game. Mistakes were made, they might say, and it was evident by the abysmal 14-13 score.
The Dolphins – an improbable 8-2, despite the loss of Dan Marino in the fifth game of the season – trailed, but this was no surprise. They were on the road, against the Cowboys (who, unknown to everyone, would go on to win the Super Bowl). The Cowboys, at 7-3, were considered a far superior team, despite the record.
And at this point, the game was nearly wrapped up. Pete Stoyanovich’s kick had just been blocked, the ball landing close to the end zone. Dead ball. Three seconds to go. Cowboys ready to celebrate.
I was returning home to an empty house, my father still at Thanksgiving festivities across town. On the radio, I had heard the set-up, the snap, the kick, the block. And, as I got out of my mom’s car, I heard a hold up. The Cowboys had fucked up. And the Dolphins may have another chance.
I ran to the front door, hastily waving goodbye to my mother. I ran in the house, switched the television on, and watched, mouth agape, as they replayed Leon Lett’s disastrous error, his snow-driven slide into the football allowing the Dolphins to get the ball back for a second chance, Stoyanovich wisely using the confusion to clear off a path to the football, a stunned Dallas crowd awaiting what could only be bad news.
Finally, a second set-up. A second snap. A second kick.
But this time, no block. Dolphins win, 16-14.
I broke free from the house. Running down the street, kicking up snow, ignoring the cold against my bare arms, I ran down the street. Cheering. Shouting. SHOUTING AT THE TOP OF MY LUNGS to no one in particular. My friend Steve, who happened to be walking down the block for a pre-planned sleepover, looked on as I went ballistic with joy.
The Dolphins would proceed to lose every game from there on out, while the Cowboys did the opposite, winning every game through the Super Bowl.
Later that night, after my father came home, Steve and I attempted to quell my football buzz by walking to Kmart in the middle of a mild snowstorm. That it was open was a surprise, but I barely noticed. My mind still ran wild with the possibilities.
It was my first taste of a meaningful comeback, and it came equipped with an elation that no amount of snow could cool off.
Issues Considered: Football, Miami Dolphins, Sports, Vilhauer