Winning Versus Whining

 Spectator sports fan here: Once again, I am trying to be a grownup about something that I should care little to nothing about. Did you guess spectator sports is that which I am trying to cultivate ambivalence? Then you too may know somebody afflicted with this affliction. If you have yelled at your television set, or spent more than ten dollars on a giant foam finger, you may be a victim of SSS: Spectator Sports Syndrome. 

A friend of mine with whom I watched several ill-fated Super Bowls that included the football franchise called The Denver Broncos began, after decades of rabid dedication, to doubt his commitment to the orange and blue. Years after leaving Colorado, he maintained his support of a team that he rightfully pointed out held little or no connection to him personally. The heroes that he had cheered back in the early eighties had moved on, retired, or became commentators. Coaches that won a Super Bowl were replaced by a number of less than stellar game managers. Those guys on the TV running around in orange and blue jerseys were being paid to do so. Some of them earned their paychecks. Others phoned it in. 

But we kept caring. 

So did my mother. When she and my father divorced, she was the one who kept the season tickets to the University of Colorado football games. And most every Sunday evening, even after I moved to California, I called her to check in on the latest weekend of struggle. I would have called in to check up on things around the homestead anyway, but this was a familiar and convenient starting place. 

And every October I asked her for her pick for the World Series. Not that she cared deeply about any particular major league team, but it seemed important for her to state her preference in the Fall Classic. Her willingness to be excited or disappointed by the performance of a group of young men continuing their season after the snows began to fly was notable because it gave us both something to discuss that wasn't the state of the world or the weather. 

All three of these topics were not something over which we had any control, but out continued discussion gave us the feeling of being wise and connected to the world in some fashion. The last time the Oakland Athletics were in the American League playoffs, my mother was quick to hop on the bandwagon, much in the same way she joined in my excitement about the Golden State Warriors chances to win an NBA championship. 

But the trouble with all this hope is that it necessarily has to be mixed in with all the despair of losing. I am reminded of how strenuously I remind kids at school how having fun is the most important part of the game, and whenever I can I bury the score in all the excitement we had playing. 

Winning isn't the only thing. There's always cat videos.