Around And Out
There are all kinds of seasons. Unless you’re into sports, then to you there are very specific and distinct seasons. Over here, my two sports loves — Marquette Basketball and Cleveland baseball — bookend each other, and rarely intersect or even touch each other. It’s a beautiful symmetry: each season gets my full (and spirited) attention. This year, it looked like we’d have some good overlap, and we ALMOST did. But last Friday, all in one day, MU’s NCAA tourney post-season run abruptly ended, and a few hours later, first pitch was tossed as the Guards took the field on Opening Day. (note: I will call the Guardians the Indians sometimes, because that was their name most of my life. But the current chant is Go Guards. All my teams have changed names and you know what? We cheer so loudly.)
Here’s the thing about sports: it doesn’t always go the way you want. It is the opposite of a sure-thing, even on the days, or weeks, or seasons, or match-ups when it feels exactly right. All the data can line up in your favor, and the physics of it all will tilt the other way. Somebody else has the hot-hand, or the hot bat. The strike-zone is tiny and there’s a lid on the basket, a ball caroms off a glove, another ball spins the hoop: around and out — heartbreak. Impossible catches, deflections, defense, offense, and the stuff that makes highlight reels…but for the other team. It doesn’t matter if your team is playing 162 games, or 30, in a season: some losses should have been wins, and maybe some of those W’s were physics in your favor.
The beauty is the possibility. Sports fans are here for it.
Psychologists tell us we need to understand chronosystems (where you are in time and place) to understand each others’ stories. Well, I grew up in Cleveland, when the Indians were pretty bad. To be fair, that is much of their history…and much of mine. But, thanks to my dad, I grew up a baseball fan. And maybe that’s where I learned that Cleveland is not about fair-weather-fans, because the weather was decidely unfair for decades. We just love our teams. (If you have not watched “Believeland” from ESPN, that is my whole chronosystem in one sports-documentary. Bless the 216.) Love the game first, then love it more when there are victories.
So I took my little resilient sports-heart to college, where Marquette basketball was a big deal. A few years out from winning it all, they had winning seasons throughout my undergrad years. They were even better in my grad school years. For the past two decades, I’ve been behind the scenes in Athletics, mostly with the other couple hundred student-athletes also repping the Blue & Gold. But behind the scenes gives you fresh perspective, and better understanding of the business that is college sports (huge changes over the last few years), and the true heart and soul of marquee programs that are populated with young adults who choose this team and give it everything. I do not give much purchase to the naysayers, the critics, the superfans posting to fan-boards anonymously. We see the work — the actual work — and the whole experience of collegiate sport, that cannot be distilled down to a 280-character message. On the good days — and this year, there were so many! — we fling open the doors and revel in the whole fandom nation. And on the tough days (re: Friday), we pull the curtain tight and lean on each other.
When you are at the top of the game — playing in an elite tournament, or playing in the pros — eyeballs are on you. For a college athlete, going to class with your peers after a heartbreaking end to your post-season dreams on national television is not the usual ‘how was your weekend?’ query. And they do it anyway. One thing sports teaches you is to suit up. Another thing is that fan support matters. Most teams lose, as evidenced with a single champion being crowned in end-of-season contests. How you suit up and walk away from the bus and into the daily life cannot be taught; it is learned the hardest of hard ways. If you have never done it, you do not know. Character is at early morning lift and tough practices, and drills and footwork and agility training. It is also in the tunnel. And on the quiet bus and the quiet plane, and tomorrow morning in Stats class. We see it all the time, especially for our athletes who leave their last competition as alumni, and hang up the towel and take the name off the locker on their way out. When any one of them smiles back at you, and says (as they do) “‘Preciate you”, take that to the bank: they mean it.
Winning seasons are wonderful, and rare. Losses are far more common than wins: personal, professional, individual, team — all have inherent losses. It is a privilege to cheer for team who wins more than they lose. Somehow, we raised our kids knowing only two quarterbacks for their favorite NFL team (both of whom were very good quarterbacks, and that is the best thing I can say about either), so there was a lot of winning. Their local MLB team regularly gives it a run, and is accessible (geographically and fiscally) so home games and tailgates defined those seasons. Their local NBA team snagged a championship no one saw coming, during COVID, and suddenly downtown hangouts were the place to be, for them and all their friends, watching on huge outdoor screens creating community in a time of isolation. In between the wins, there were losses, but the wins are what they talk about.
Except that their mom is from Cleveland. So they do know whole teams can up and leave, stars can take their talents to South Beach, and in a longed-for post-season, the brass ring can be 3 outs away and STILL not happen. I used to tell them I’m still getting over the ’95 Braves pitching rotation, but now I tell them maybe we could have played through that rain delay in Game 7 in 2016. They know. In 2016, the Cleveland Indians lead the World Series 3–1, with three games left (two at home) so they just had to win one to clinch. They did not. And it felt as if the whole world (or at least the Kingdom of Baseball) rooted against us. The fandom for the opposing team was legendary. My team lost that last game at home, and it was as brutal as it sounds. Much of 2016 was a dumpster-fire for many reasons, but we the faithful thought that maybe the arc of the long-ball would bend in our favor that year. To our everlasting credit, we always think that.
I have been a Marquette-fan longer than most of my colleagues have been alive. And I’ve been a Cleveland fan all my life. On behalf of my teams, I have seen some stuff, been discounted and counted out, been dissed and dismissed, have screamed myself hoarse and danced in the streets, seen coaches (and even whole teams) pack up and leave without even a nod. I’ve had all the sporty feelings you can have, and have come back — every season — for more. What makes fans fan like that? Heart of champions: our teams, our cities, our schools, and us. When we talk about the physics of the game, it is not just the bat on the ball, or the ball to the hoop; it is the way our blood pumps and our eyes light up, it is our voices amplifying our anthems, our clapping hands and stomping feet, high fives, whistles, cheers, and maybe our tears. All of it. Year to year to year. We are here for Gameday, and all the days in between.
