The Highs and Lows of Sports

     I'm a dumb fan. I love sports and I like to think I'm a little bit more of a rational fan than most but oh boy did Notre Dame prove me wrong on that account. If you want a good laugh, go back and look at my article detailing how this year might be Notre Dame's year from a few days ago and then the box score from their game last night. What a joke! I'm not necessarily a Notre Dame fan I certainly root for them and they did the most Notre Dame thing of all--paying Northern Illinois upwards of $1 million, just to lose on home turn. That got me thinking of how sports can bring you so high and then just absolutely crush you. Notre Dame had a huge win last week, jumped up to #5 in the AP Poll rankings, and everybody was talking about the winds of change blowing in South Bend. This is the classic Charlie Brown and Lucy football video. Lucy is holding the ball, promising to actually hold it and Charlie initially doesn't trust her but eventually does, and takes a huge running start with complete confidence and at the last second Lucy pulls the ball away. Exactly what Notre Dame just did to all their fans

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    For millions of sports fans across the nation, and the globe, sports are the greatest and the worst thing in the world. They give you something to look forward to, something to help you connect with a community, and something to believe in as well. But at the same time, they can completely crush your spirit. For many fans, despite not being apart of the time, they say "we" when talking about their team. If you find this annoying, get over it. Fans give their heart and soul watching in person or on tv and in a sense really are apart of the team. Sir Matt Busby, the legendary soccer coach at Manchester United who changed the landscape of the sport said, famously, "Football without fans is nothing." Without fans cheering on the teams, sport would be more or less a rec league so yes, we are apart of the team, mostly.

    In my house, this is not a unique experience to many homes in the world, my partner gets more internally worked up than I do during games because she knows that if my team loses, the whole day is ruined. Which, sadly, is the truth. Last football season as the Eagles were falling apart at the end of the season, it was a not a good few weeks in our house. But during the offseason as the Birds made huge changes to the team and things started to look really good, obviously the tone in our house changed. The stark contrast of when a team is good versus when a team is bad really should be studied by social scientists. During the Patriots 20 year run, I imagine divorce rates were probably low in the New England area, but the day Tom Brady left, that rate probably tripled. 

    Sports are the best, but also the worst. Nothing can crush you more than a watching a heartbreaking loss and then having to move on with your life. Going to work on a Monday after watching a weekend of losses in football is tough. Especially when you're a teacher and your teams are well known so you have a class full of teenagers making fun of you. Teenagers can be brutal so needless to say, it's not a fun experience. But that is the joy of sports, the highs and the lows. There's nothing quite like it. Nothing sells like drugs, and sports are certainly a drug. Happy watching, sports fans.