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Confessions of a Sports Illiterate
I am writing this in curiosity, not in mockery or condescension of sports fans. I think was born sports-impaired, and by that I mean that not only have I never been any good at any sports — save swimming — but I have never really been able to derive much enjoyment from watching others play, no matter how well. This proved rather awkward for me in school and at home, as my father is quite the devotee of football. I tried stoking an interest in baseball for a few years, but lost interest in the great 1990s walkout.
I am asking this in all earnestness and curiosity: why do you watch sporting events? How is it enjoyable for you when the entire experience is essentially vicarious? You are watching someone else perform, so why invest so much of your emotions into the outcome? Some points I can understand, such as having a knowledge of the game from prior personal experience, or having a friend or relative competing. The rest, however, is rather alien to me.
Secondly, why do you favor one team over another, aside from mere geographical favoritism? This one especially puzzles me, as most players on any given team come from all over the US — indeed all over the world — regardless of the sport. I can readily understand hating a team, given how some teams or their owners can be insufferable, or just win so often that you tire of them (the Atlanta Braves of the 1990s come to mind, with Ted Turner as their owner). I just do not understand why you might pick one team over another for loyalty, especially given the pecuniary costs of acquiring merchandise.
I kept silent with these questions prior to Sunday’s match as I know fans of that sport can be a bit worked up. Another poster here took some heat for saying that he was not planning to watch the game, and I was not keen to partake of the same. I’m just asking out of curiosity.
Published in General
Its all about the Haka!
I’ll take this question, gladly, because I must be the most untalented athlete on the planet although I’m a consistent runner and swimmer and keep physically fit.
I like sports because I am an English major and lover of drama. Sports provides winners and losers, good guys and villains, intense analysis (ever see an offensive lineman’s playbook?), emotional highs and lows and often, a shocking, but definitive ending.
In other words, all the makings of a great Shakespearean play!
Sports are about competition, drama, having a team to route for (everyone loves to be on a team Rep/Dem, Coke/Pepsi, New York/LA), and the enjoyment of human achievement. Sure the achievement might be using a stick to whack a little white ball 375 feet, but I sure can’t do that. It is pretty cool that he can do that 50 times a year!
But sports is also about escape. I can turn on a Yankees games and putter around the house, but all of the sudden I am not in my front yard pulling weeds, or under the car changing the oil, or on the treadmill, I am in Yankee stadium sharing the experience with the millions of others who have passed through the gates into that hallowed ground and I am part of something bigger than myself. At least for a couple of hours.
I surely understand about the “hallowed ground” and will always remember my first visit to the real (original) Yankee Stadium and Monument Park.
I agree about the escape aspect; I got Derek Jeter’s autograph as he stood behind the Yankee dugout one blazingly hot day in YS and I was walking on air for a week! And this was only a few years ago, so I can hardly blame the immaturity of youth. :)
Well, Skip, I’m glad you asked the question because I’ve been puzzled — first by the utter euphoria around here in Seattle all of January, and now by the anguish and anger and rage. People are saying such mean things about the coach. Oh we love the risky play when it works, but if it doesn’t then we pile on the criticism.
Football is fun, so entertaining (totally agree EThompson and 67MM), especially when the home team does well. Playoffs are even better because spectacular things happen when the best play the best.
But I too, must be sports-impaired, because I don’t rise to the heights or fall to the depths of the raging emotion, nor do I even get it.
I wish Seattle would have won the Super Bowl, but was also secretly hoping we wouldn’t, because last year a bunch of idiot celebrants badly vandalized the beautiful pergola in Pioneer Square, and another set of idiots set off fireworks all night long near our house, terrorizing the dog and keeping us awake.
It was win-win for me.
What they said. (Well put ET and mustangman) As for the team you pull for, I pull for the home teams. Not everybody does. Not everybody has a “home” team. Growing up in the Triangle area we didn’t really have a home NFL team and it was before the days of having to show the “regional” game. (EJ can explain this better than I.) The Cowboys seemed to be on most Sundays so I became a fan. Now that we have the Panthers, the Cowboys take second fiddle. Some people do follow players more than teams. This is the reason I was pulling for the Seahawks. I am a big Russell Wilson fan.
Forgive me Skipsul, for I have sinned. I am also a sports illiterate. Even worse, I enjoy my illiteracy.
Five Hail Mary Passes, and I’m cleared, right?
Watching sports for me is what seeing a theater production or hearing a symphony might be for someone else. A well-executed play is like choreography: everyone has to be where they’re supposed to be and doing what they’re supposed to be doing for it to work. To play a sport well is not easy, and knowing how hard it is makes it more spellbinding to watch.
I see magicians and wonder, “How do they do that?” and know I’ll never figure it out. I see a double-play, clearly understanding the steps to doing it, and marvel at how easy they make it look. Like magic.
I think a lot of people root for the home team because it’s what they grew up with, proximity and familiarity making the locals an easy choice. Some people seem to pick the rivals of their home team just to be different (or to annoy a sibling or parent). :)
Depends if they’re completed or not, Jules. :)
As a child I was good field and no hit. At 13 I was Pedro Cerrano (of Major League as played by Dennis Haysbert), “Bats, they are sick. I cannot hit curveball. Straightball I hit it very much. Curveball, bats are afraid. I ask Jobu to come, take fear from bats. I offer him cigar, rum. He will come.”
Jobu no help.
But having played the game, and then umpiring it for twenty years, I appreciated exactly how difficult it was. That appreciation will make you a fan. It will also make others tilt their head like Nipper the RCA dog when you say things like, “Hitting the sweet spot of the bat is almost as good as sex.”
But take all your observation about sport and you transfer it to anything. Why do like music that you’re not composing or playing? Why do you look at a painting that you didn’t paint? Why do you read, watch plays or movies? It’s not your story!
Oh, they’re complete all right. So long as the Receiver, or is it the Safety? (not the kicker. def not the kicker. don’t throw to the kicker) does not drop the ball, or get a yellow flag, right?
;)
FYI, I’m a relatively recent football fan and trying to learn more about the game.
1. I like watching people who are at the top of their game, whatever that game happens to be.
2. I love strategy and the thinking process that goes into competitive decision-making in all settings.
3. I’m sure some of my interest is exactly because I am also “sports illiterate.” At the time when sports people typically become sports people, my interests were computers, music, and debate. Now that I watch games, I want to know more about what’s going on. Learning more also reinforces the watching, into a sort of cycle.
So it’s like opera with protective gear then, too, isn’t it?
I think I agree but, full confession: I know nothing about opera.
I’d be interested to hear your analogy though; sounds interesting!
Well, one is full of drama, loud noises, brash music, love stories, and heavy makeup, in the other they sing.
Somtimes in opera, they sing so high and loud I do get a concussion. :)
And the Basso Profundo makes my gray matter rattle.
I think that the human brain as a pattern-seeking system finds a sublime pleasure in achieving closure, through any means. It didn’t have to be sports. It could have been opera.
Skinner boxes within Skinner boxes.
My guy didn’t win the big UFC fight. I still enjoyed it. I can tell you all about why I enjoyed it, but these are rationalizations produced by my happy brain. Pattern filled. Pellet received.
The teams reconstitute every year and sometimes during the year, as Jerry Seinfeld says, we root for the clothing. Jet Revis, YAY, Patriot Revis BOO!
I’ve been wondering about the nature of fandom for many years and why we do it, people in Seattle this week will actually feel physically sick, being a Jet/Met fan I know the feeling well. Every once in a while I have to tell myself, this has nothing to do with me , I don’t even know these people.
It is love and just like romantic love there are great highs and bad lows, without it your life would be more on an even keel but something would be missing.
The differences between music, fiction, or other forms of art and sports stem from the viewer’s involvement and reflection of the form. Art involves the viewer or listener in the act of creation, while sports (for me anyway) is just a spectator experience.
Music appreciation is an individual experience that is unique in its ability to both instill and draw out emotional responses. Done well, a musical experience is empathic. Sure we may (if we have the training) admire the execution, but our connection to the music is through the emotion of it.
Paintings or photographs reveal other worlds and imply the existence of other stories. We may, again, admire a painting for the skill of the artist, but we are drawn in by the world depicted and put ourselves into that world, or that captured moment. Our connection to a piece of visual art is in no small part due to how we see ourselves in it. I would argue this is why so much of modern abstract art is forgettable-it often both prevents a viewer from connecting with it, and denies our right to do so. It demands we take the artist’s perspective or else move on.
A well-written story is perhaps the most interactive art form of all, for it puts the reader into a story, then relies on the reader to generate the depicted world in his own mind. Jasper Fforde uses this as the basis of his excellent Thursday Next series of novels.
At least for me anyway, I do not feel any involvement in watching sports. The skills of the players are certainly apparent, and at times I can root for one team or another, but I am on the outside of it all.
I would much rather watch two teams in which I had no rooting interest play hockey (a sport about which I don’t know a lot) than read another Thursday Next book. Is it so mysterious that peoples’ tastes in entertainment are different?
And saying music is about emotion . . . well, I love the symphony and sometimes get emotional, but this happens every Saturday during college football season:
(source here)
I’m a casual sports fan. I’m sure to watch every Bama football game — because my family would banish me forever if I didn’t — but I don’t love it enough to schedule most of my days and spend entire weekends glued to the TV.
But the general rules are 1) the more you know about it, the more you will appreciate it, 2) the more friends and family around to share it with, the more fun it can be. And always have a good cook handy.
There was nothing quite like watching Jonah Lomu crashing over defenders like they were little children.
Sports are what we want the world to be and what it really is. They are what we want ourselves to be and aren’t. And we can share the experience.
There is a structure. The players have to perform within that structure. Someone will do that thing best and then there’s everyone else. There’s a beginning and an end. A winner and a loser. Clarity. What we want life to be.
But there’s also luck. And cheating. And pain. It’s life.
The players are graceful and powerful. Quick and smart. And at any moment, anyone on the field can be a hero. We imagine ourselves on that field. We could be the hero.
But we can’t. We can’t hit the ball. We can’t run that fast. We can’t be the hero.
We follow these athletes. Particularly the locals. We get to know them. We share in their experience. And we share that experience with each other.
Did you see the game? Wow, what a game!
The only sporting event I actually watch with any semi-regularity is UFC, and that’s because it’s the only time I get to hang out with my very-married best friend these days (and he pays for the pay-per-view) as he invites all “the guys” over to his place.
You hit the nail on the head, but not in the way you meant.
“Art involves the viewer or listener in the act of creation, while sports (for me anyway) is just a spectator experience.” This disconnect comes from a lack of either understanding or empathy with the athletes. The athletes are engaged in an act of creation. The spectator who understands what is going on and can imagine himself into the mind of the athlete can experience the exertion of will, the physical suffering and exaltation of the effort, the joys and sorrows of the successes or failures.
Consider “Chariots of Fire,” when Eric Liddell describes his joy of running in these words, “I believe God made me for a purpose, but he also made me fast. And when I run I feel His pleasure.” Anyone who has put foot to track can understand what it would be like to feel that, even though few will ever feel it.
Now, I have played the big three sports at various levels, with a small degree of skill and athletic ability. I can imagine what it would be like to have the gifts that the great players have. I marvel at them the way an amateur guitarist marvels at a Segovia, or an amateur writer marvels at a Dostoevski, or an amateur thinker marvels at a Milton Friedman.
Why, then, do I hate the Patriots, the Yankees, the Cowboys, and, from time to time the Celtics? Because I was born and raised in Philadelphia, and I am loyal to my home teams. I am an ideologue on the subject of the greatness of Wilt Chamberlain. There are teams I don’t like because of the boorishness of certain players or coaches. I almost always root for the underdog, unless I have a more compelling rooting interest in the game.
Sports can be an extract of life’s complex attributes: practice, preparation, courage, struggle, strategy, overcoming pain and the desire to quit and rest, fair play on a level playing field, and sportsmanship. As I have explained to my now grown sons since they were small, sportsmanship is the most important aspect of sports. Being both a good winner, (“I was lucky today. You played a good game”) and a good loser (“Congratulations. You were the better team today. You deserve to win.”) is essential to one’s character.
Exactly. I was the overweight kid who could not hit a ball with the bat. Turned out I was a passing fair goalie in ice hockey and through sheer determination, lettered in the sport in high school. That was the peak of my athletic career.
I, too, majored in English literature and the classics. Watching highly talented and skilled athletes perform in competition is inspiring in the way watching a finely rehearsed musical performance or a well presented drama: it is participating vicariously in an event that imbues itself with meaning through its myriad of possible outcomes, and like efforts made in ordinary life, can end in glory or defeat.
Skip,
I am using your post as another opportunity to complain bitterly about the coverage of tennis. In other sports coverage at least the action itself is followed well by the camera work. Only in the strange world of tennis can the camera work not follow the action.
Camera one is the long shot. 90% of the match is through the long shot. Yes you can see the whole court, both players and who wins the point. So what!! From this distance you could be watching a video game or one of those pong games from the 80s.
Camera two is the close up. This is the other 10% of the coverage. The camera comes in so tight that you can see the sweat dripping off the nose of the player. Of course, with this tight of a shot you can’t see anything else, like say the motion of his actual serve or return. Apparently, watching the sweat drip off the nose of a tennis star is a big draw for the tennis crowd. Makes me not want to have anything to do with the tennis crowd.
How difficult would it be to have a camera a few rows up in the stands with a small telephoto that would look right over the shoulder of the players. You would get to see the technique of the best players in the world that way. Apparently, that isn’t of interest to the tennis crowd. Weird.
Regards,
Jim
One of the joys of sport is precisely that it’s artificial. It’s a human drama created by an artificial conflict (i.e., competition between two teams, or players, etc.) where there’s a psychological safety in knowing that the victory or defeat is only artificial also. The artificiality of it is what allows people to pour so much intensity into it; after all, no one really gets hurt.
Major league, professional sports serve as a common civic rallying points. The sports have no inherent meaning, but it’s fun to invest emotion together.
If you really want to experience sports, don’t worry about playing them. Very few of us need to know the precise details of a wide receiver’s route tree, or whether the weakside linebacker should blitz or spy the quarterback. Go to a football game. Tailgate. Wear the team colors. Wait for a long pass, and the collective gasp of 50,000 people, and the sheer joy or dejection shared by 50,000 people.
Does it mean anything in real life? No. That’s the fun of it.
I had the best on-base percentage in Little League because I was never stupid enough to swing the bat. The pitchers were so awful that I got walked nearly every time I was up at bat. That was probably my peak. Also had the 2nd best record in base stealing, though I was pudgy and slow. You see, panicked catchers couldn’t make a throw worth beans.
I’ve been to baseball games (the sport I understand best), football games (college only, never pro), and hockey games. Even in person I could never really get into them.