Sports in perspective

liljol · **Joined:** Sun Jan 10, 2010 8:41 pm **Posts:** 2497

"So I hope you’ll join me in taking a beat, assessing the situation and acknowledging that all of us can probably do a better job of appreciating football’s diversionary and exhilarating pleasures while resisting the temptation to lose ourselves in the drama. My advice, for whatever it’s worth:

If you’re a grown man who wears another man’s jersey, role-play to your heart’s desire, but try to remember that while cheering isn’t everything, it’s the only thing you’ll be doing for the home team on Sunday.

If you have a fantasy team, you own players solely in the imaginary sense of the word, and if you win your league realize that there’s a decent chance luck and coincidence played as large a role as dedication or talent on your part.

If you can successfully predict the outcome of a game, or numerous games, you might be clairvoyant or smarter than the poor saps who got it wrong – or you may simply be someone whose instincts and sensibilities have been validated by the outcome, deserved or otherwise. If you can successfully predict winners against the spread, vaya con Dios – and Viva Las Vegas.

Now here’s the tricky part: If you love an NFL franchise the way that I give my heart to my beloved alma mater and all the teams that represent it, please don’t confuse turf wars between men in pads with any sort of fight on your part beyond the hopeful hunt for reasonably stated bragging rights.

That means that the refs are not out to screw your team (or, by extension, you), nor are the analysts who pick against you or the experts who fail to see your true potential, even in the face of evidence you believe to be overwhelming. If you’re seeking affirmation, join a cult – football, by definition, harbors too many potential dissenters.

And while winning is a drug and losing is a drag, understand that the respective outcomes prove nothing, save that one team was able to outscore another. For every exultant, trash-talking fan there’s a desultory, bile-spewing counterpart on the other side.

So yes, one group of players may be competitively superior to another, and the same goes for organizations over a number of years. Rooting for a team that wins, however, does not make you a more important human than someone whose favorite team has fallen on hard times. It merely makes you a more fortunate fan.

Finally – and this is the most important part – whatever feuds, slights or crusades the competitors in question summon among themselves in an effort to achieve maniacal motivation levels should not be personalized by the non-participants. It’s not healthy, and it can literally be dangerous, to hate a member of the opposing team because he makes bold public comments or seems too ornery or disrespectful for your tastes."

The preceding is an excerpt from:

http://sports.yahoo.com/nfl/news;_ylt=AjdlFnLrWkI5JDR_nXM2hh1DubYF?slug=ms-silver_steve_jobs_michael_oher_life_100711

I must add that there is more than a lil bias here, since Michael Silver and I are both tired and true California Golden Bear alums.

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Sports in perspective

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