Hopeless Fanatic

My rant on sports, and how to more deeply appreciate them

To follow up my last post, about a conversation that I wanted to start (or rather continue) but didn’t - It’s also why I hate facebook. And the casual sports fan.

People who care little for sports, or only use it as pure entertainment, just want to trash talk. They care little how you feel or what you think or what context things are said in or happen. Because, when it comes to sports, they don’t think. They watch, they consume, and they are told what to think by ESPN and others. They don’t think for themselves at all. Soundbites and buzz words replace original thought and deep logic. Sports are a mental game, both for athletes and fans. As a fan, when you make it out to be something simple, something easy, something black and white, you are missing out on what is truly great about sports.

Sports, games, seasons: they are all living, breathing, constantly changing developing things. One event does effect another. There is a cliche that “every point counts” whether it is at the end or 5 minutes into the game. Why then do we so often talk about the play and situations right at the end? If one team is getting open shots, why? Is it because the other team is off, or is it because they are compensating for an event that happened earlier? And does this matter? I say yes. If you ignore why an event happened, how it was set up, you cannot fully learn from it. You treat the source of the problem, or all of the sources, not the immediate cause. Well, you treat that too. But don’t stop there. Yes, you can find some statistic that will say that you played poorly because you didn’t rebound well on defense, or that you didn’t stop the run on 3rd down, or that you didn’t get enough shots on goal. But why? Isn’t that more important? Fans, think like a coach. Think strategically. Don’t settle for bullet points on ESPN’s highlights or what the bottom line says or the post game press conference quotes of the coach even. Listen to the coach at his weekly coach’s show. If you can, watch practice. Really analyze what is going on, how a team reacts from one time out to the next, from one game to the next, and so on. It’s not simple. You make it simple to consume it easier. But it’s not, and you know it. The world is a complex place, full of variables. So, too, are sports. Eat up those variables, those uncertainties, and watch how real life humans, just like yourself, execute and react and compete. Sports are beautiful, and you are selling them short and missing out on so much when you take the easy way out, just to be entertained by a few highlight real dunks.