See Me Squeegee

A few months ago I was at a bar in Manhattan Beach in an interesting situation.  I was there with my buddy Tyler, with whom I was facing off in fantasy football that week; our friend Dave, who played wide receiver in the NFL for six seasons; Dave’s girlfriend Annaliese, whose brother also plays in the NFL; and their friend Steve, a SportsCenter anchor on ESPN.  Tyler and I were talking all kinds of fantasy football trash, which was funny because we were sitting with people who are around the actual NFL all the time and we had to explain to them what we meant.  So then the NFLers turned it on us, asking “why do you care about sports?”.  They had the easy answer – it made them and people around them rich (which wasn’t their only answer, but a nice trump card they had).  For Tyler, Steve, and me?  They weren’t going to be easily impressed.  So I’ve been thinking about it and I’m more convinced than ever that sports do matter.  Here’s why:

Sports Unites

We’re a nation divided, a people divided.  Politics, religion, money, aspiration – in many ways, the more people around you the more you’re alone, as in New York and LA it’s not at all uncommon to not know your neighbors or say hello when you pass them on the street.  We’re segmented in entertainment with hundreds of channels designed to segment us into small slices of marketing goodness, and we walk around as (i)Pods the way Steve Jobs intended, earbuds in so that we walk to the beat of our own personal soundtrack out of tune with others’.

But sports?  Sports makes us all wear the same color shirts and fight traffic to be together.  Sports gets us up at the crack of dawn to park our cars on a grassy field and share beers and barbecues.  Sports packs us into a bar and forces us to high five and hug strangers.  Sports lets us say “Roll Tide” or “Go Blue” to people we see on the street and really mean it, genuinely smiling and taking pride in our collective happiness.  Sports unites.

When I was six, the Detroit Tigers won the World Series.  I was old enough to watch games on TV, follow along when I got to go to a game or two a year with my dad, read the box score in the paper.  I knew it was special, but when we won?  Neighbors came to the door hooting and hollering and spraying beer.  We hopped in someone’s car and drove the mile or so to downtown Plymouth and the town square, and the whole town was out, hugging, chanting, smiling…  That’s when I started to see the power of sports – the whole town was out, everyone was happy, sports had united.

This past couple weeks, Michigan’s basketball team made a deep run in the NCAA Tournament, and I was reminded again of that unifying power of sports.  As we got deeper and deeper into the tournament, I got more and more calls, texts, emails from friends from long ago – people I hadn’t talked to in months and people I hadn’t talked to in years.  And maybe it’s a sad commentary that we *needed* sports to bring us back together, but then again that’s the world.  We become divided whether by geography or new priorities or schedules.  Sports unites us.

And what’s most fascinating to me is that sports unites people regardless of their rooting interest.  So many of the calls and texts I got this week were from fans of other teams – they didn’t necessarily care that Michigan was in the finals, but they knew that I did and they understood.  My friend Hallie is a huge Alabama fan; we don’t work together anymore, we have totally different schedules and live in different parts of LA, but when Alabama has big games she always invites me over because she knows I understand – I’m not really rooting for Alabama (who roots for the house in blackjack or the killer in horror movies?) but I’m rooting for her to be happy because I know what it’s like to have a team on the verge like that.  Sports fans get sports fans.

Sports is the ultimate conversation starter – if you see someone in their team gear it’s a natural opener, either “congratulations” or “bummer about that game” or “good luck tonight”.  It’s something we all have in common – if LeBron James scores 50 points over the weekend, it’s noteworthy enough that we can all talk about it on Monday; if the Lakers sneak into the playoffs, it’s a conversation whether you love them or hate them.  A guy who works for us in Boston wrote to me the other day – as part of our half-business, half-basketball email chain – that “I can’t count how many people I know that I wouldn’t know if we didn’t have sports in common”, and I agree.  Sports isn’t just a conversation starter, it’s a natural reason to invite people over or out to the bar for a game.  In a way it’s lowest common denominator – it’s tough to get people excited about an activity you researched or dreamed up, but if you invite people to watch a game at the bar?  You’ll get enough turnout and probably know some other people there, anyway, that you’re bound to have a good time.

Living in Los Angeles, I’ve noticed that certain cities have that extra level of civic pride and brotherhood, and sports is invariably the reason – Boston people are thrilled to see other Boston people; I wear my Detroit Tigers hat walking down the beach and call it “the friendmaker” since someone from back home is bound to say say something and strike up a conversation.  Sports unites us.  Sports matter.

Sports Matter Because They Don’t Matter

You know why sports are such a good conversation starter?  In large part because they’re more or less trivial – they’re something we care about while all the while we know it’s not real life.  You can’t casually ask someone “how’s your marriage?” or “how’s your retirement portfolio?” the same way you can ask “how about those Lions?”.  Sports matter because we care about them even though they don’t matter – they’re perfect for conversation, perfect for feeling those artificial highs and lows to help balance out the real nerves, fears, and pains of whatever may ail you.  Sports are just trivial enough to matter.

Think of it like this – we’re animals.  We thrive on adrenaline, we’ve evolved to be active, raise our heart rates, let emotion take over and feel highs, lows, and everything in between. But we’ve created a world where that doesn’t happen regularly – most of us aren’t worried at all about our next meal the way our ancestors were.  The day to day of your job or relationship doesn’t really change – there are milestones but they’re far apart.  So look at humanity – we look to drugs, alcohol, manufactured drama, anything to feel highs and lows the way nature intended.  And then there are sports – sports allow us to feel that adrenaline, gearing up for a big game as though we’re narrowing in on a survival hunt; narrowly escaping defeat and being able to feel the stress pour off of us. All exhaling “oohhh” in unison when a big shot just misses the net.  Sports is just trivial enough to let us do all of that – to really feel – without much consequence.  As we’ve created a world in which we sit at desks and answer phones and type on keyboards, sports lets us get that moment to moment surge of anxiety and adrenaline.

Sports Inspires

The caveat to “sports doesn’t matter” is “well, neither do the Kardashians or  anything on HBO”.  But the difference is that sports *is* real – it’s people pushing past their limits, it’s the human body achieving new heights.  The adrenaline we get from sports can be channeled – into a better workout, into going after a goal, into putting everything you have into whatever confronts you.  After Trey Burke’s jumper against Kansas two weeks ago, I ended up on the Venice Beach basketball courts shooting threes – our crew was inspired by the game and wanted to play.  Lance Armstrong inspired me to buy a road bike, which led to Ironman triathlons.  And athletes everywhere inspire kids to dream big and patients to fight hard.  Sports has the capacity to not just unite us, but involve us – it’s people like us (but then again not that much like us) doing amazing things, a reminder that we all have something amazing inside us.  Sports does that in a way that scripted entertainment just can’t.

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So sports does matter (and sidenote – I’m using “sports” as singular here…not entirely sure why but it felt right when I started writing.  Sorry, grammar nerds!).  When I was a kid I was known among the family for writing great thank-you notes after Christmas and birthdays, but my formula was pretty easy – know where my relatives lived and then find something that mattered to them to comment on or ask about.  And it was usually sports.  When my aunt and uncle lived in Dallas, it was the Cowboys. My grandparents were in Chicago – I’d ask about the Bulls.  Sports was an easy way to relate to the world; even now, it’s hard to truly know someone, as we all have the public “me” we show to the world and the internal dialogue of what really matters to us but that we may not want everyone (or anyone) to know.  Sports is that direct route to show someone you care about something that’s important to them – when a friend says “Go Blue”, shoot, it’s not that far off from “I love you” or at least “I care about you and want you to experience happiness today”.  And, readers, same to you.  Go Blue.