Negative stereotypes can give people
sustenance. By trivializing others who
aren’t like us, we come to feel better about ourselves. That’s why people from cities like New York
or Los Angeles may enjoy looking at rural southerners as rednecks, or why the
latter may view New Yorkers as uptight jerks or as Los Angelinos as crazy
hedonists.
Of all our unflattering stereotypes, easily one of
the most recognizable is the dumb jock. This
creature is almost invariably a “he.” He
is also white, insipid, and prone to binge drink and drool at the thought of “hot
girls,” which is his term of choice for impressive women. He is
obsessed with team sports -- preferably both as a participant and as a spectator. Above all else, he is incapable of showing true
sympathy for other people because he is supremely shallow and sympathy requires
at least some degree of depth. If you want an example of this stereotype, consider
the character of Steve Stifler from American Pie. His love of sports did absolutely nothing to
build his character.
I can see why the dumb jock stereotype is so
enduring. Much like people who don’t
enjoy art, dance or religion, there are plenty of us who don’t care for team
sports. Yet because ballgames are such
an important part of our culture, even those of us who don’t like them will be
frequently besieged by animated conversations about which team is going to win
the next game or whether a referee screwed up the previous one. I can relate all too well to the person who
doesn’t appreciate team sports.
Whenever
I encounter people talking passionate about technology, not only does it bore
me silly but it makes me feel like I’m missing a basic human gene. Unfortunately, I don’t have a negative
stereotype to draw from when I see people talk about smart phones or
cameras. But the sports haters? They have the luxury of remembering dumb jocks
in the movies, which will reinforce the notion that spectator sports are a colossal
waste of time. Stifler might understand
what it means to hit into a “6-4-3” double play or to bring in a “dime” back, but
that knowledge will never help him avoid being a bore and a bully. From this perspective, we cultivate nothing of
substance from rooting for ball clubs – unlike, say, the virtue we’d gain from watching
a dramatic play or attending a new art exhibit.
Far be it from me to criticize the theater or the
art museum. I crave “high” culture as
much as the next guy. The thing is,
though, sports culture can elevate us as well.
That lesson was on vivid display this past Thursday night.
Steve Stifler, at this point, would recognize my
reference to last Thursday. He was
obsessed about one sport with a stick (lacrosse). I’m talking about another
(ice hockey). Thursday was the night
when my hometown Washington Capitals won the Stanley Cup. This franchise has been in existence for 44
years, but Thursday night was the Capitals’ first world championship. Watching the emotional reactions to their victory
reminded me of why following team sports can be a deeply uplifting activity,
the kind that helps people AVOID acting like Stifler, despite what Hollywood stereotypers
might want us to think.
After the horn sounded to end the game, a celebration
erupted on the ice. The players rushed
to embrace each other with unbridled joy and affection. This was a lifelong dream realized, the
dream of reaching the pinnacle of one’s craft and entering the history books as
winning the greatest award that your profession has to offer. But the beauty of this award was
that it wasn’t primarily about individual achievement. It’s a celebration of an entire team, not just the team's top players. And what you saw on the
ice that night wasn’t the look of narcissism but rather the look of love – men realizing
that they would never have achieved this honor unless they had come together as
a group and believed in each other.
Indeed, that feeling had been on display throughout the evening leading up to
the final buzzer, because whenever one player scored a goal, his teammates
celebrated that goal as much as if they had scored it themselves. That is the nature of a championship team –
one that puts aside egos and revels in the collective – as opposed to all the
other squads that got caught up in selfish play and never could work particularly
well as a group.
Thursday’s game was played in Las Vegas, whose
hometown Golden Knights had a storybook season of their own, even though it
didn’t result in the Cup. But while the
celebration on the ice was surely the most intense, there were plenty of other
parties going on across the country in Virginia, Maryland and Washington D.C. It would surely have been a crazy scene to go
to the Capitals’ stadium, where thousands had lined up for hours to watch the
game on a big TV screen in the hope that they could experience unbridled joy
with their fellow fans. A similarly
crazy scene was on display on the streets of D.C. a block away from the stadium
– thousands more had collected there to watch the game on another big
screen. Tens of thousands of Caps fans
in the stadium and in the streets joined hundreds of thousands of others in bars
or in living rooms all over the DC area who were hugging each other and smiling
from ear to ear. You won’t see that kind
of group affection when you go to a theater or an art museum. I’m not sure you’d see that kind of joy
either. Doctors, lawyers, teachers,
janitors, housekeepers, real estate agents, hotel clerks, you name it – this celebration brought together as wide a swath of people as you can imagine. They were feeling pride in their city and
intense appreciation for a small group of guys who worked hard to hone their craft,
put their egos aside, and immortalize themselves in the annals of their
sport. We all witnessed a similar scene
four months earlier in Philadelphia, whose Eagles won the Super Bowl for the
first time. When you consider that the fans have rarely had an opportunity to meet the players they celebrate so intensely, you realize how remarkable these events truly are.
Watching the Washington Capitals’ players blissfully skate
around the ice hoisting the 35-pound Stanley Cup above their heads, I was
reminded of the words of Goethe’s Faust:
“Now I could almost say to the passing moment: Stay, oh stay a while,
you are so beautiful. The mark of my
endeavors will not fade. No, not in
ages, not in any time. Dreaming of this
incomparable happiness, I now taste and enjoy the supreme moment.”
Sports haters could point out a crucial difference
between the emotional fulfillment enjoyed by Faust and what was on display when
the Capitals won the Cup. Faust’s
happiness, a cynic might say, had a worthy cause – not the outcome of a
meaningless ball game, but rather an accomplishment of epic proportions. Faust, you see, had envisioned a “foul and
filthy” swamp and suggested that “if we could drain and cleanse this pestilence,
it would crown everything we had achieved, opening up living space for many
millions. Not safe from every hazard,
but safe enough.... Oh, how I’d love to see that lusty throng and
stand on a free oil with a free people.” It was that idea – the idea of enabling millions
to earn their freedom every day – that gave Faust such unbridled joy that this
momentary feeling would truly be worthy of eternity.
Neither the Washington Capitals nor the Philadelphia
Eagles enabled millions of people to live in freedom. Surely, during the weeks and months that
follow the winning of a championship, the memories of a city’s sports fans will
fade a bit. Rather than thinking about the
heroes who brought them Stanley Cups or Super Bowls, many will return to focusing
on their own inadequacies. Perhaps their
anguish will grow to the point that they will take their own lives, or that of
someone else. God knows we hear about
plenty of suicides and homicides these days, and nobody should fool themselves
into thinking of team sports as an antidote to all of our society’s
scourges. The kind of universal freedom
that Faust was talking about has always been confined to fiction, sad to say.
But here in the real world, there is still something
to be said for moments of unbridled joy that are enjoyed by thousands or
millions of people who are celebrating human achievement. The love we saw on display Thursday evening
was neither phony nor completely ephemeral.
That championship and that trophy will help all interested parties appreciate
what it means to be human. It will
remind players and fans alike that sometimes we can establish a goal, work hard
to satisfy that goal, and then take our time to revel in our accomplishment. What’s
more, even if we personally weren’t the ones most responsible for that
accomplishment, we at least can revel in the fact that we have the ability to open
our hearts and honor those who were. We
can, in fact, remind ourselves of how beautiful it to love other people.
Last Thursday night, I was reminded of what it was
like for me 50 years ago, when as a child I watched athletes celebrate a
championship. Even if they didn’t play
for “my team,” I felt good for them.
Sometimes I even felt great for them.
In other words, I felt sympathy in the truest sense of the word, which
includes not only compassion for others’ suffering but also gratitude for their
joy. Sympathy is precisely the opposite
of what the stereotypers would have us associate with sports lovers like Stifler. And yet there are few things better than
spectator sports to cultivate this quality of sympathy for others. Indeed, just as sports fans revel in a
championship team’s successes, they have spent many more evenings feeling pain when
their beloved players end their seasons on a losing note.
We now live in a dark time when the evening news is
more depressing than ever and people flock to dark, and often dystopian, television
programs that present human beings as violent, treacherous monsters. Contrast that with the spectacle on display this
past Thursday -- one of skill, grit, pride, and yes, sympathy. Then tell me that following team sports is
inherently worthless and stupid, and that the biggest sports fans are soulless meatheads.
Please, let’s give up this attitude once and for all,
lest we become as vapid and ignorant as the fictional Steve Stifler.
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