Revelations

I have a dear friend who truly loathes the very existence of professional sports. To his mind, the time we spend (to say nothing of the money) taking about and following professional sports is an absolute waste. And worse, it distracts us from important issues that deserve our time and attention.

For years, I had no idea that he felt this way. In fact, a lot of our friendship was founded on, or based on talking about sports. He comes from a big sports town and I had rooted for and against some of the teams from that city in the past. I simply assumed that, being from that area, he was in to it, and he made no suggestion that he wasn't. Meeting groups of his friends from back home did little to change that perception, as many of them we're very happy to discuss just about any sports topic you pleased. Though it was far from the only topic we ever discussed, there is little argument that sports greased the skids for us in the journey from acquaintances to lifetime friends.

After he moved back home, I would occasionally write to him when one of his local teams was playing a big game. It's one of my favorite parts of being a sports fan. I see a game between two teams, two cities, promoted and I am instantly thinking about friends and family members in the areas of those teams. Sometimes I will reach out to them, maybe before, or after the game. The whole process makes my far flung scattering of family and friends seem closer. But, anytime I reached out to this particular friend, no response would come. No big deal, as our friendship was far more involved than these one way exchanges, but still, it seemed odd.

Eventually we talked it through and he admitted his disdain for pro sports. I can see his point. Even before The Off-Season began I knew that he could name senators, world leaders, and other political figures and their accomplishments the way I could recall big moments in sports. I'm sure there are many people out there who can do both with ease, but it seems my ability to multi-focus is limited.

This leaves me asking a very big question during The Off-Season. After you consider the power it has to build friendships, and connect us as a society, and after you factor in the distraction it offers us, and the absurd money, and questionable treatment of athletes of all ages, if you add it all up is "Sports", as a cultural force, good or bad?

The list of major pro sports scandals is a long and familiar one, so I won't bother dredging it all up. We would be fools to think that scandals will ever stop. Former athletes seem to meet with tragic endings more frequently than child stars. In many ways, I think that is what they really are, child stars. They gain wealth, celebrity and validation for doing something they have done since they were just kids. When the ability is gone, which comes early in a life relatively speaking, they must share that feeling a child star has as they struggle to recreate themselves. Unfortunately, in both cases, if it's gone, it's just gone. Who wouldn't have trouble adjusting to that?

It's easy to ignore the machine that pro sports is while you are watching the highlights. It's easy to just think about the cities that the teams are representing. And even as I write all this, I miss that dearly. But when next October rolls around, it may be very difficult for me to jump back in with both feet.