Not a Sports Fan

On a few occasions, I have cared about the outcome of a game. A graduate school professor once instructed my class to watch the Super Bowl. The quarterbacks were John Elway, near retirement, who had made it to the Super Bowl several times, but had never won one; and Brett Favre, a younger player going in for his first Super Bowl. In a pregame interview, Favre expressed admiration for Elway and his long history. He also said, more or less, that it was time for the old guy (a man closer to my current age) to move on. That very personal statement gave me a team to root for. I was Elway’s fan for the day.

I’m remembering SuperBowl XXXII in 1998; Elway led the Broncos against the Packers. I enjoyed seeing the old guy beat the upstart, but those details don’t stick in my memory. If I had heard a different interview, I may well have rooted for the other side. The MVP, a rusher named Terrell Davis (who I remember plowing forward a few yards at a time, using the singular technique of climbing over most of the opposing team), had a migraine during the game. I do remember that, but not the scores.

One requirement for fandom is an arsenal of knowledge about scores. To me, scores removed from the game and players that produced them are not interesting. To care about wins and losses, I’d have to care about the players or the teams. I guess I could fake passion about scores, in order to share a communal experience with other fans (or just seem cool)—but that seems dishonest.    

If I had the time to study the personal histories of players, I’d probably become passionate about them. I’d want the guy or girl who is most like to me—or who is somehow a realization of my ideals—to win. But I’d recognize my passion for what it was: a simple act of ego projection and unconscious identification.

I also can’t get past the feeling that if Team A beats Team B, they will soon play each other again—probably resulting in Team B beating Team A. And if I depend upon one of those teams to win, for the purpose of vindicating my ideals, that vindication is likely to be short-lived. In this (realistic) scenario, how can I conclude that any one team is composed of more motivated, harder-working players (my criteria for choosing a team to root for)? In other words (from my point of view), if there’s nothing to learn from a game, how can I justify taking time away from my family to watch it?