Go Team!

What is it about a game, a sport that turns adults into children again? Countless times, I have watched my adult husband who rarely gets visibly excited about anything (I think I got a "that's cool" when I told him we were going to spend a week in Cabo for our honeymoon), turn giddy with excitement at a play that gets made by one of his favorite sports teams. His voice gets all high, he will clap really loud, say "Yeah heah heah!!" and look for someone to high five (usually me or our 3 year old). There isn't anything else that does this to him. My husband isn't fond of strangers but I've seen him hug a few at a Tigers game that went into extra innings and was ultimately won by our beloved kitties after a Granderson walk-off (Grandy, we miss you). And I don't want to pigeon-hole these reactions to professional or college sports. We were at our niece's soccer game and she had the ball, dribbling it down the field towards the goal as fast as her little 8 year old legs could carry her. I watched my husband and our niece's grandpa jump up and down from one end of the field to the other screaming "GOOOOO! GOOOOO!" and when she made the goal, my husband and her grandpa threw their arms in the air and then I think they may have even made out.


And these emotions aren't limited to the real world. Have you ever found yourself cheering for the Dillon Panthers (later the East Dillon Lions) while watching Friday Night Lights? Who wasn't cheering for the T.C. Williams Titans, even though they were coached by Denzel Washington? The same goes for the West Canaan Coyotes and their conflicted leader, James Van Der Beek. And if you didn't cry when Kevin Costner pitched a perfect game for the Tigers then you have no soul. I mean, you even find yourself pulling for Charlie Sheen in Major League. Winning! What is it - that primal, internal force that makes us metamorphose into silly, impulsive kids. There's something about sports that just leaves us stupefied.


And why not? We all have some sort of competitive nature inside of us, whether it's on a sports field or within ourselves - we all strive to be the best at something. Sports just overtly illustrates that drive to compete and desire to win and succeed. Is there anyone out there who wants to lose, whether it's at a football game or Monopoly? No, the object is to win. Either for money, status or a sense of pride, none of us want to be stamped as "The Loser."


Who's your team? Your team. You have a team right? While it may be owned by some random b/millionaire, their purpose, their dignity, their history is yours. You call them "my Yankees" or "my Tigers." You identify with them. They represent you and your fellow fans. What are the Detroit Lions? Some would say that historically speaking, one of the worst teams in football - one of the sorriest - the only team to go 0-16 in one season - a team that wasted several draft opportunities on a series of defunct wide receivers. But to the Lions faithful, they represent Detroit (the city), Michigan (the state), blue-collar, a will-rise-again attitude. And more recently, if the Lions can claw their way back to prosperity, so can we. Lions fans take "pride" in their team. I'm willing to bet that there are some who have stuck with their Lions longer than with their spouses, for better or for worse. And the same goes around the country and across all leagues. A Steeler fan carries the same bag of emotions for their team...so does the Cubs fan (poor cubbies), so does the Yank...You even do it as a country. My husband and I were jumping up and down screaming "Go!!" during the Men's 4 X 100 Freestyle Relay in the 2008 Beijing Olympics, witnessing Jason Lezak and Team U.S.A.'s comeback against France to take gold - and we're not swimfans (terrible movie by the way). In fact, that may have been the first swimming race we ever witnessed and the only one since. But they were "our team," we are U.S.A. I've never felt so patriotic. I just teared up watching it on YouTube. If you have that relationship with your team, consider them an extension of you - if they win, you win. And if you win, you celebrate. "Yeah heah heah!" High five anyone?


Lastly, sports is pure. It is apolitical, although some try to defy that. It isn't religious although some claim it as their religion and it has no lingering effects outside of the occasional broken heart which gets snuffed out by the hope of the next game. The dips and dives of the emotions you feel during a game are genuine, like a child's. No filter, no inhibitions...24 karat emotions.


So while you may not watch sports regularly or consider yourself a fan, don't say your heart doesn't pound a little harder and that you don't get goosebumps when Rocky Balboa downs Ivan Drago in the final minutes of Rocky IV. Hell, even the Russians were cheering for him.