| Me, a new believer, developing metrics-based analyses for U12 soccer. [Columbia Pictures] |
| You win some, you lose some, you... cry some? |
| About the time I crumpled on the turf trembling, overcome with an urge to throw up, guttural noises last heard in the “Saw” movies leaving my mouth, I rose up out of my physical form to study this mysterious transmogrification. What was happening? I was watching sports. Sports. Blech. Not my favorite, Bob! And yet, a visceral, physical response had emerged from my corporeal form. I was cheering, and hard. This was not the World Cup, nor the Super Bowl, nor the World Series, nor… uh, I guess, the hot dog eating championships? Playing out before me, an athletic contest between 10- and 11-year-old girls. My stepdaughter’s competitive U12 soccer team had made it to the finals of a tournament in Sarasota. A magnificent weekend for them, each game more stunning than the last. They’re actually really good! They came back from behind in the second half to tie up the final. While I was suffering an apparent stroke or religious experience, they were in the middle of an endless penalty shootout. I’ve seen dozens of these games, clapping, supporting, the whole nine. I rarely miss a match. Even when it’s 107 degrees and the grass is filled with Burdock seed and parents on the other team are flying a camera drone and encouraging their spawn to clip heels from behind, I find watching her play fun and fulfilling. I’ll be honest, though; until last weekend, I never really understood sports people. I understood sports, just not the gourd-splitting fervor some fans seem to experience. I never played a team sport other than one summer of basketball in fourth grade when I was 3-foot-9 (I don't like to talk about it). But I've seen enough. I watched, oh, eons of college football with an ex. Years of Saturdays spent in front of living room TV sets with team magazines and bowls of spin dip. It took a few years, but I learned the intricate rules. Even now, I can glance up whenever football is on and mutter, “holding,” or “pass interference,” and then yawn and go back to my Wordle. But those folks crying and praying the rosary at the World Cup? The ones painting their faces and hairy bellies and wearing matching striped overalls and foamy corn hats and jumping on the field to climb goalposts? Those baseball fans with rosters and tiny golf pencils? Those humans whose entire day gets ruined or made by a team playing halfway across the country? Nah, no, never got it. Hallelujah! After my near electrical malfunction of the heart, I finally do. I am now Brad Pitt in "Moneyball," a shrewd observer of both sport and human nature. I have experienced the proverbial runner's high and know that a conversion into total, psychotic fandom requires a few key elements: 1. A gradual build: The tournament finally broke me because the stakes kept getting raised. A one-off match? Whatever. The fourth and final meeting after a long weekend of HEART and EFFORT and HOTEL SUGAR PACKETS? Tensions were sky high, and so were my systolic and diastolic numbers! 2. A gang of merry revelers: The sidelines got so unwieldy because all the parents were experiencing a major life-affirming moment at the same time. It's a kind of participatory culture, except instead of printing zines or producing independent films, we were screaming in tandem for youth athletes. 3. Caring: I really wanted to see a win because of our own kid, of course. But the weekend made me fond of all the girls in their own ways. Seeing them cry would have be like watching a video of a baby giraffe trying to reach a leaf on a tree but falling into the mud. WE CANNOT ABIDE. So, did my zealotry pay off? Did watching the PKs through finger slats in between fist pumps deliver me from evil? No, they lost on, like, round 13. And it was absolutely gutting. A little, sad Sarah McLachlan song played in my head, and all those misunderstood sports fans I'd scoffed at over the years appeared one-by-one under a haze of Vaseline, tears in their eyes, Sean Astin in "Rudy" on their shoulders. I'm sorry. I didn't know. I'm sorry. |
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