The Other Case for Sports

I'd like to prime this post by saying that I have never excelled as an athlete- I played sports as a boy, less as a teenager, and play slightly more now.  I've always enjoyed it, but have never been by any account a truly competitive athlete.  I was lucky enough to grow up as an artist in a thriving community of artists; a place where my particular skills, while not physical, were appreciated.  I was regarded as normal for being a writer and not a football player, encouraged to pursue what I was good at rather than  create myself in a more common image.  But I never lost respect for athletes, or spited them for their skill- in fact I harbor deep admiration for people who dedicate their lives to doing something they love, whatever it may be.
It has, however, been a process understanding the role that professional sports play in our lives as human beings, and uniquely, as Americans.  Our national appreciation is unique only in that we were the first to elevate our athletes to the temporary divinity they enjoy- but that distinction is a marked one. To take a more holistic and long-term view of sports is more instructive, at least to me, in understanding why they are truly so important to us.  We frequently get lost in the Yahoo! blips about LeBron and the Miami Heat's Grey Goose filled chalice sipping bar tabs of $200,000, and the itemization and free-market structure of nationalized professional sports.  Many sports have come to be understood as a series of prominent stalwarts paving the way for future athletes to excel- a cinematic narrative of home runs, slam dunks, touchdowns, and the heroic personalities that score them.

But that's not the way I appreciate the game, and many of my friends who are athletes have expressed similar sentiments.
No, I think many athletes and fans alike take a more sociological appreciation to the game; and since the dreamy cataclysm that was the 2010 Giants World Series Win, a breath of friendly clarity has renewed in San Franciscans that appreciation.  As with a globalizing world, our teams have become less and less associated with the localities they are from; it was only on the dangling precipice of luck that the 2010 Giants roster flung together an amalgamation of athletes uncannily glued to the ideals of the city they would play for, and an even thinner strand of possibility that put us back on the map.  Like San Francisco, the Giants are quirky, unconventional, and decidedly confident.
2010 made me remember how a sports team can truly unite a community- putting to use not the personal faculties of the individual players, but the common stock of dedication of a group of people to bring happiness and joy to their fans.  Sports have done this for communities in the past, and still do, and it is through this lens that I admire these men and women.

 

It is through this lens that I watched the Eurocup Finals today, as Spain and Italy toiled for the most prestigious honor in the world of European sport, two nations that have, in the span of the Euro crisis, lost much of the stability that once underpinned their gloriously vivacious cultures.  Bearing through the hard times, their Futbol clubs acted again as chivalrous vicars on the grand stage- an economically beleaguered Spain pinning a 4-0 win on the green, undoubtedly producing an evening that, as I blog, is being soaked in pride and blood-red Sangria.  Now being hailed by sports columnists as potentially the greatest soccer team ever, I hope that the likes of Vicente Del Bosque and Xavi Hernandez carry the Spanish people through these difficult times, and that the Italians can stomach the results with graceful candor and similar patriotism.

As we head into the Olympics this July, four years deep into a global recession that has sunk the hopes of millions of fellow humans, let's think about these Olympians not as celebrity deities, but champions of humanity, esquires showcasing the determination and enduring spirit of our species.