The Lanuage of a Fan

Growing up living and loving sports, I've encountered my fair share of sports fans of all different interests and level of devotions. I've noticed that no matter how passionate the individual is, the use of pronouns remains consistent. When discussing "their" team's success, a fan will say "WE won" or "They can't be beat US". On the contrary, when a fan talks of the team's failures, they will most likely say "THEY lost" or "The (Insert Team) Suck". Though the difference in language is subtle and often goes unnoticed, it is key in explaining the human psyche. Humans have always had a need to bond together, whether it be in the form of tribal alliances, social memberships, or zealous patriotism. Having that desire to be a part of something greater, something more prominent and universal, we tend to attach ourselves to our team, claiming "WE won". The connection we feel with a team is fostered in large part due to the team names. By naming a team the "Chicago" Bears, we feel an even closer tie and even obligation to support and root for "our team". Though it was designed as a marketing strategy to widen the viewing audience, team names are key in creating an "Us" (Chicago) versus "Them" (Rest of United States) environment. Though our financial support and team spirit fuels the team's success, "We", the fans, never actually play or contribute directly to the victory. We don't, however, let the obvious physical differences prevent us from being on the team emotionally. A fan, though he doesn't play, can feel the same emotions to a greater or lesser extent than a player on the team does, trust me I know. Thus, to a fan, when he team loses, the pain of the loss effects his mood and in attempt to lower the discouragement he feels, he attempts to distance himself away from the team's struggles by using the less familiar "They". Likewise, a fan will be eager to celebrate a victory or success by using "We". In the end, our subconcious use of the pronouns "We and They" is a fan's way of coping with the team's ups and downs.

The "Dream Team"

Remember, if you can, the days of your youth, playing sports with your friends either in gym class or outside of school. Remember that before you started, you needed to form teams. Though the methods differed, they all had a similar goal of forming relatively even well-matched teams. However, there are those few times where the better players realize that by all playing on the same team they would crush their opponents and achieve an easy victory. Most agree that games they played where the teams were uneven, no matter if they were on the dominant or outmatched team, were the least enjoyable for them. These games were the worst because the uneven teams eliminated the element of competitiveness seeing as both teams know the outcome of the game before it starts, and thus, lose the will to try.
Sadly, something similar seems to be occurring in the NBA. Last Season, the Miami Heat acquired two of the best free agents in the league in Lebron James and Chris Bosh. These two elite players had both been the stars of their respective teams and decided to accept slightly less money in order to play alongside another all-star, Dwayne Wade. Other players, such as Mike Bibby and many other veterans soon realized the potential of the team and decided that it would be worth sacrificing their salary in order to join the “winning” team and have a chance of becoming a champion. Though they lost last year in a close series to Dallas, Miami continues to attract quality players from all over the league because of the talent they have. Miami is not the only team guilty of luring players based on their ability to contend, other teams such as the Los Angeles Lakers, the New York Knicks, and even the “dream team”(AKA Philadelphia Eagles) in football have used their players and their level of talent as incentives to convince others to join their team. Like it does when I’m in gym class, this centralizing of talent to a few teams bothers me a lot. Because players are beginning to ignore the traditional incentive to join a team, the money, teams are becoming more uneven as only a few teams can actually contend with one another. Besides being less entertaining for the viewers, and less profitable for the owners of the teams, I can’t imagine it’s very satisfying for the players. Take Mike Bibby for example. Before he joined the heat, he was averaging roughly 14 points per game for team that he played an integral part in. On the heat however, Bibby has taken a back seat role, playing less and averaging a mere 7 points per game. Like in the case of Bibby, players are not only giving up money by joining these teams, but they are also sacrificing individual success for success as a team. Though this could be seen as honorable, the intentions are actually selfish.
The lesson that these actions seem to endorse is instead of working hard to improve and developing yourself and others, you might as well just abandon all efforts and join a team that seems most destined for success.

Timmy Tebow

Sports, with many of the games decided by simple chance and opportunity, has had a history of superstitions, rituals, and traditions. Many players and fans turn to faith and superstition in order to gain the upper hand against their competition and achieve their ultimate goal of a victory. But no one relies more on religion than Tim Tebow. After an illustrious college career and winning two national championships and Heisman awards at the University of Florida, Tim Tebow entered the draft as an unappealing prospect. Scouts criticized him for his lack of pocket passing ability and believed that he would be unable to adapt to NFL offensive schemes. Due to much suspicion, Tebow was drafted very late in the first round by the Denver Broncos.
This past year, Tebow was able to win the starting quarterback job from Kyle Orton after Orton’s pitiful 1-4 start to the season. Given the opportunity to prove himself, Tebow has taken advantage and led the Broncos to a 6-5 record single-handedly brining them back in the playoff hunt. Though his unorthodox play and unflattering statistics have raised much criticism and skepticism about his ability to achieve success in the NFL by many, including Denver greats John Elway and Jake Plummer, his ability to win continues to marvel everyone. Personally, having seen him play, I don’t think he’s a great QB at all. He’s not too quick, his mechanics are questionable, and his throwing accuracy and power are less than impressive. Sometimes, he doesn’t even play well, but no one cares as long as he finds a way to win.
In a secular growing society, Tim Tebow has made clear his strong connection to Christianity. He is often found wearing bible quotes beneath his eyes, praying, or quoting the bible. The recent success and victories he has received are attributed to his strength in Christ. As a result, the popularity of Christianity is beginning to rise in the sporting community. Even I am beginnning to think that Tebow's winning streak has a lot to do with his connection in Christ. Indeed, it is pleasant to see such a moral individual get rewarded and Chrisitianty gain influence in an immoral world, but it's dissapointing that many other important character traits are being ignored. Because Christianity recieves the credit for his achievement's, Tebow's other qualities, such as leadership, determination, and devotion, are underminded. It's imperative that the rest of society recognizes the importance of traits and recipricate them in their own lives.

The pendulum of life

With their impressive win over the Detroit Lions, the Chicago bears are now 6-3 and tied for the Wild Card lead in the National League. Their defense has never looked better, their offense is rolling, and it seems as if they might be championship contenders. However, If you had asked me or any other sports analyst four weeks ago if the bears were going to make the playoffs, we certainly would have responded “No, they are not a playoff team”. How did they change so much during these few weeks? They might’ve moved a couple players around or had more practices or bonded as a team, but other than that, the team hasn’t physically changed much. In this case, it is all about the momentum.

Momentum is a physics concept that literally equals the mass times the velocity of an object. However, when used as a cognitive metaphor, it is the tendency for things to improve (positive moment) or worsen (negative momentum). It’s often said that sports are games of momentum, because it’s momentum that can be the deciding factor between a win and a loss. Take this year’s Notre Dame Michigan game for example. Notre Dame had all of the momentum at the beginning and went ahead 24-7 going into the fourth quarter. They’re defense had contained Denard Robinson while Cierre Wood and Tommy Rees had the offense running smoothly, it seemed as if they were the better team and had already won the game. However, Michigan was able to score early in the fourth quarter. This score seemed to regain their footing and caused Notre Dame to have thoughts of a possible comeback. Following the Michigan score, Notre Dame was held to a three and out, and was unable to get the ball moving like it did. Michigan got the ball back and scored again. Michigan’s offense seemed to inspire its defense, and the defense seemed to fire up the offense. Meanwhile, Notre Dame remained locked in a downhill spiral and began to panic and lose hope. It was this sense of positive vs. negative momentum that decided the games outcome and often changes the tide of many games no matter the sport.

Though momentum is seen to be very decisive and evident in sports, it doesn’t actually exist. Momentum is simply just a word used metaphorically and often unknowingly to describe the increasing and decreasing levels of confidence that a team has throughout a game. Society has used physical concepts to better describe the psychological because it allows them to understand and picture it more easily. However, this subconscious metaphor that society uses only downplays the importance of confidence not only in sports, but in life in general. By being confident, we find that we can accomplish more than we imagined in all aspects of life. Gandhi emphasizes the importance of confidence when he says“If I have the belief that I can do it, I shall surely acquire the capacity to do it even if I may not have it at the beginning." But don’t take his word for it; there are hundreds of others who believe the same thing. If confidence can be such a large deciding factor in sports, imagine how much of a role it plays in your life. Thus, no matter what you are doing next, if you remain confident and continue to believe that you will succeed, you surely will achieve your goal.

Blog Response: Importance of Communication

http://howdowecommunicate.blogspot.com/

Bill brings up an excellent point about the importance of communication. Communication is especially important in sports because without out it, teams won't act cohesively and will struggle to succeed. Look at the 2004 Mens USA Olympic Basketball team. Their team was compiled of NBA allstars, Bryant, Iverson, Mcgrady to name a few, whose talent levels where through the roof. Having the better players didn't translate to wins, as the USA lost to names like Lithuania and ended up recieving a bronze medal that year. This example is proof that no matter how much better players you have then the other team, if they don't play together, they won't win. It's this element of team chemistry, or how well players on a team communicate and work with one another, that makes a team great.

As he said, communication is definitely a two-way street. But before one can begin to communicate, one must understand the individual that they are trying to communicate with.

There is one sports comedy movie that emphasizes this point called Eddie. For those of you who haven't seen it, which you should do eventually, its about a die-hard Knicks fan (Whoopi Goldberg) who wins a contest and ultimately becomes the Knicks head coach. As a coach, she begins to learn that the reason why the Knicks aren't winning is because they don't communicate with each other or the coach and thus, don't play well as a team. This scene here (from 6:25-7:30) illustrates how Eddie learns importance of communication and understanding in sports. She then takes the time to understand her players. She teaches 7-foot Ivan english, she discusses marital troubles with Hastings, and shows Stacey Patton the importance of teamwork. The movie ends up proving that understanding one anothers differences in strengths can be difference between mediocrity and greatness.

The role of Ethnicity

In our English class, we are currently over half way through the book Poisonwood Bible. This story consists of multiple female perspectives of the family's religious voyage to the Congo. When reading the section written by the youngest of the narrators, Ruth May, I was astounded by her extremely racist and disturbing views of others. On page 51, she states that the hungry native children she sees have swollen bellies because God realizes they are black. She believes that blacks start out white at birth until God realizes they are from the Tribes of Ham, and turn black (she calls it a "curse") (215).She also observes that the troops led by white officers instead of black ones are clearly superior. It really saddens me to see such hurtful comments and racist opinions come from such a young innocent girl, because it shows how negatively impacted her views are being shaped by the Southern culture. Ruth May's mind, at her age, is a clean slate. She simply observes in order to learn. Therefore, Ruth May's thought and reasoning is a reflection of the American South culture. Her racist opinions are formed as a combination of what others around her believe and what she observes. Now, as a result of the racism she is exposed to, she believes in many hurtful and untrue "facts" concerning other races. My frustration led me to ask the question "How do people come to hold racist beliefs?"

The answer: observation and inference. Today, I came across an interesting fact: A Samoan male (either an American Samoan, or a Samoan living in the 50 United States) is anywhere from 40 to 56 times more likely to play in the NFL than a non-Samoan American. This shocking fact justifies race's role in one's life if not racism itself. Why is it that Samoans are generally better football players than other Americans? Why were 82% of the NBA players during the 2008-2009 season black? Why does Jamaica, a population 1/100th the size of the United States, continue to dominate us in the sport of track? Take a look at this article and note the vast differences in race percentages by NFL position. Looking at the statistics and probability, the chances of all the running backs being black and all the kickers being white are less than 1 out ten billion. Whether you want to recognize it or not, the statistics prove that race seem to be a large determining factor in one's life.

This is, I believe, because of culture. It is our culture that emphasizes certain aspects of life. In the Samoan culture, they emphasize brute strength and aggressiveness among the male population. In Jamaica, the sport above all that they emphasize is track. It's important to recognize its not race that defines ones values and tendencies, but the culture from which the race exists. Once we all understand the distinction of race and culture, hurtful racism will be a thing of the past.

Cubs Curse

It’s that time of year, October, the end of the MLB season and the beginning of the enthralling playoffs. Yet, like usual, it’s another year where my team, the Chicago Cubs, are absent from the playoff picture. You’d think by sheer probability that they were due for a MLB championship, having not won one in over 100 years. But the team manages effortlessly to continue its championship draught and have cubs fans say but not always believe that “There’s always next year”

In the book that we are reading for English, Poisonwood Bible, we gather the evident and important role of religion in the lives of the Prices, the American Missionary family living in a Congolese Village, and the Congolese themselves. In the recent chapters, there seems to be a little rivalry between Catholicism, represented by Nathan Price, and the local traditions led by Tata Kuvudundu. Each character desires a larger following and is willing to denounce the other in order to grow. In order to prove to the people that their religion is the truth, they label any occurrences as an act of God, or having religious intention. For example, the perceived death of Adah, who was thought to be eaten by a lion, was originally called a vengeful act of God against the Price family due to their study of a false religion. However, after the news was discovered that she lived, the story was turned into “God saved this girl from the lion because of their loyal devotion to him”. It’s a natural human tendency to want to know why things occur the way they do and for the answer to this question, they turn towards religion/myth.

This need to religiously rationalize experiences is a trait we also see in sports. Feeling the need for an explanation as to why the Cubs have defied the odds and are so good at losing, many fans have blamed lack of a championship on a curse: The Curse of the Billy Goat. Myth has it that during the 1945 World Series game against Detroit at Wrigley Field, Billy Goat Tavern owner, Billy Sianis, was asked to leave due to the odor of his pet goat. Sianis later sent Cubs owner, Phillip Wrigley, a telegram saying “You are going to lose this World Series and you are never going to win another World Series again.” Since that point, this curse has only gained believers, especially after the heartbreak and epic demise of the NLCS series with the Marlins in 2003. I still remember sitting in my kitchen watching game 6 in which the Cubs were up in the series 3-1. Prior, one of the best pitchers at the time, was on the mound and only had given up three hits in the evening. Cubs were up 3-0 with one out in the eighth and no one on. Then a double, followed by a catchable foul ball interfered with by a fan, then a wild pitch walk, an error by Alex Gonzalez, and before you knew it, the score was 7-3. The Cubs went on to lose this game and the next, and the Marlins went on to win the World Series. It was a painful implosion by the Cubs that had many fans asking “Why?” Just as Greek myths and religious mythology were created to explain natural phenomenon like the creation of the human race, sports fans created the “Billy Goat” myth to explain the reason for the Cubs struggle. Religion plays such a pivotal role in Poisonwood Bible, sports, and even society in general because it explains things nothing else can.

Welcome to the world of sports.

Sports mean something different to each and every one of us. I understand that many of you readers range in interest in sports: from the sports fanatics to those who don't know between the super bowl, sugar bowl, and cereal bowl. Whether you follow sports religiously or not is irrelevant, because however much I would like to simply talk sports with you till your blue in the face it is my goal and duty in this blog to not only broaden your knowledge of sports but explain it’s relevance in our lives.

Through this blog, I hope that you will begin to discover that sports influence more realms than we know. Obviously, sports are a huge part of our culture. Much of our lives are spent either playing or watching sports because of their entertaining nature. National teams, no matter what the sport, are a source of state pride and can also reflect and even impact the political/diplomatic agenda of a country. Take rivalries for example. Rivalries between two nation’s sports teams have the tendency to spark or further political tension between the two countries (like in the case of USA and the USSR in the 1980 Olympics). Professional sport leagues also play a rather large role in the economy. With the large viewing audience it attracts, it generates income from ticket sales and even creates revenues for the television programs and internets domains that follow it.

Most importantly, though, sports provide us with meaning on a personal level. Sports stories have the ability to inspire, motivate, and give us hope. For many, sports are a way to escape reality, or find a place where life is peaceful and makes sense. Sporting programs offer life lessons and transform thousands into better individuals. In addition, they allow countless athletes to be recognized for their achievements and for a lucky few, provide them with income for life.

As you can see, sports are more than silly games that distract us from reality, but instead, shape our reality on a global and personal level. I hope that you will continue to follow and post comments on my blog as I continue to uncover more topics, stories, and events and their connection to sports.


Till next time,
Merrick Topping