Last night, the world watched as a giant beaver served as the parting memory of the 2010 Winter Olympics. The United States, its pride wounded after a hard-fought hockey defeat to Canada, took extra solace in his furry arms. Everyone always talks about how the Games are so great for world relations and it shows we can all get along for some friendly competition. For me, the Olympics have always had a different kind of special significance. For whatever reason, the Olympics get me to give a crap about sports, if only for a couple weeks.
Force Field of Dreams
When I was a little kid, I was into watching baseball with my great-grandpa. My favorite player was Ron Cey, who played for the Cubs. They called him the Penguin because he was short and he kind of waddled, and at the time he had a .300 batting average. I didn’t know what that meant, but I knew it was better than anyone else’s. Ever. As a boy growing up in the midwest, I always had dreams of being a professional athlete, but trying out for baseball a couple of times quickly crushed those dreams. (Apparently, they have special pants that only go to the calf, and you do NOT, in fact, pull your socks up over your jeans. Who knew?)
After that, my desire to have anything to do with sports pretty much vanished. Sure, I’d watch the Super Bowl with my family every year (mostly for the commercials), and I played a little Tecmo Bowl. But, for the most part, it was like I’d decided my place in the world – and sports didn’t fit into that equation. Once I got into my teens, I even started to see athletes in a negative light – mostly due to a bunch of asshole jocks at my high school, their pack mentality, and their willingness to fit me into lockers. My opinion of sports improved somewhat once I got into college, though my interest never returned. I didn’t have anyone bullying me anymore, and had 5 years of martial arts training (which ironically, never really struck me as a ‘sport’, since we rarely competed). I could separate assholes from athletes once again. I’d still pass if somebody wanted me to go see a baseball game.
IOC = Intellectual Olympic Control?
When it was an Olympics year, though…. I’d find myself in front of the TV watching stuff I never thought I’d expect. I was excited about the U.S. Basketball “Dream Team” when they first started allowing professional players. Figure skating and gymnastics always fascinated me with their spectacular moves and technical difficulty. This year, I was riveted by curling (and not because of the unusually high concentration of attractive women in the event, either). The whole damned world gets really excited about swimming. SWIMMING. In a non-Olympic year, if I asked any of my friends to come over and watch swimming with me, I would be met with weird looks, laughter, and possibly masturbatory hand-motions.
I once begrudgingly brought home a used copy of Madden ’07 so a friend would stop pestering me to play it with him. My wife, upon seeing me take it out of the bag, uttered words that would stick with me forever: “You brought sports into our home??!” This same woman told me she almost cried when the U.S. hockey team tied the game with seconds remaining in their match vs. Canada yesterday. There is clearly some sort of mind control at work here. I wish it would work all the time. I like getting excited about real things of little actual consequence that are happening in realtime, and I especially like doing it in groups. I find it strange, then, that professional sporting events don’t have much appeal to me.
Orcs vs. Humans?
Two years ago at Gen Con, the Indianapolis Colts were playing a game in the nearby stadium. I will never forget seeing all the people with blue jerseys and facepaint glaring at all the nerds and gamers (many of whom were carrying broadswords), who were glaring back. I felt like I was about to watch a riot unfold. Is this what keeps me from watching football? An old tribal hatred? Did my clansmen have the same experiences I did growing up? How the hell do we stop this? (For the record, I would gladly give my life if it meant that nobody would ever receive a swirlie ever again.) And yet, on occasion, I find people like my friend Dave (no not that Dave), who are into sports for nerdy reasons. He thrives on stats, and keeps track of all the players. That is the fun for him. And he’s a big of a geek as I am. He is a mystery to me, and perhaps an example to follow.
I daresay enjoying the Olympics makes me feel more connected to the rest of the world. I suppose the Olympics does work its secret “togetherness” magic on me after all. Somebody call me when the NBA or NFL figures out how to do the same trick.
When I was growing up, sports were just a way of excluding people on the playing field… I started to enjoy playing only when I played with friends… and yet, even now, I find watching sport to be boring…
I wouldn’t even notice if professional sports were suddenly banned… and beauty contests… two of the things I really don’t care about…
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Dude… I too decided that sports were not my cup of tea. While I had the build (I was 5’11” and weighed 180 lbs by the time I was 13) to play football and Hockey and the attitude/ego to become a successful jock , I always hated sports (there’s a daddy issue somewhere I’m sure) and instead focused on my grades and making the delicate social experiment of becoming a popular nerd.
I don’t get really excited about olympics either… but I did watch the last part of that last hockey game… in that I think the whole northern 2/3 of the continent was linked by some mind control ray for sure…. broken by that Crosby Android. 🙂
Great post, as always… you are one of my favourite online writers Matt.
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Yay for team Canada!! 😉
Like you I never was much into sport although not for the same reason the Olympic is always interesting by its nature and history. Right now I’m impressed by my fellow Canadian athlete. If somebody would have tell me last year that Canada would beat the Russian record of 13 gold medal in a winter Olympic event I would have laugh in their face…
As for the curling events I watched Canada vs Japan and the japan woman team was compose of some seriously cute members. 😉 Curling is surprisingly fun for those of us that like to be intellectually stimulated. It combines technique and strategy. I’ve tried it once in team building activity, although I sucked at keeping my balance, it was serious fun.
There’s this weird square-shaped relationship between Fantasy Football/Sports, Sports Video Games, RPG Video Games, and Tabletop RPGs. They’re all inter-related, but one half hates the other half.
Well, I don’t really watch the Olympics any more (my life is way too busy), but I understand the appeal. When the Olympics are down, you have a chance to root for your great big “home team”: your country itself. The NFL? You’ve got a community, yeah, but it’s not always as much of a community. And it’s all hyperfocused into the groupsport dynamic. Teams against teams, rabidly competing through a season.
The Olympics let us have national heroes, sometimes even villains. They’re not about regional tribal teams, they’re about individuals who rise up and take the mantle of a country, just as the champions of legend. They’re about celebrities who haven’t yet stooped to celebrity. They don’t make an incredible amount of money, they’re not chosen to optimize profit. At least, not as far as I can tell.
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@Lunatyk: As someone who has routinely been picked last, I can sympathize. It was half actual skill and half popularity. Unfortunately, I possessed neither half. 🙂 I used to enjoy watching beauty competitons (read: swimsuit round) when I was younger, but the more I found out about their reality, the more they absolutely disgusted me. A painted-up terrible, shallow person isn’t beautiful. Neither are identical Stepford-wife beauty-bots. Okay, those are beautiful in a different way. I just want a SETI@Home server cluster that wears mascara. Is that too much to ask?
@phil: I was always large enough to play sports, but until karate it was just 200 pounds of dough. Then it turned into 200 pounds of KILLER dough. 🙂 I never considered myself a “popular nerd” in school – I always seemed to find myself following one around. I think I might have had a lot easier time in school had a channeled a few more ranks into the CHA-related skills. It just seemed useless/and or impossible to improve my social standing at the time.
@Yan: I’d like to try curling sometime, but I have absolutely no idea where to look. They have plenty of hockey programs here but they’re all for the youngsters. Sadly, I suspect there will not be any hot chicks at any local curling leagues.
@Dave: It’s funny how that works, isn’t it? You can substitute fantasy equipment for sports gear (and vice versa) pretty easily, but almost everyone will universally find it lame and almost offensive. There’s a reason Megaman Soccer didn’t take off, and a reason nobody bought squares for Eomer in the Fantasy LOTR League.
@Andy: It’s interesting you bring up the community aspect. The Olympics can bring us easily together as one mighty united national force, but the “we’re awesome, the rest of you suck” mentality of local sports fans remind me somewhat of the fierce loyalty of the citizens of ancient Greek city-states. Cubs v. Cardinals == Athens v. Sparta? I disagree entirely on Olympic athletes not being chosen to optimize profit. The newcomers, perhaps not. But Michael Phelps and Apolo Ohno? Who knows how much endorsement money they got? It’s enough to make Shawn Johnson’s taco pop.
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The Olympics bring out that ‘everybody is rooting for the same team’ feel that you just don’t get with local or professional sports. The other nice thing is that in some events you will be rooting for the favorite, in others for the underdog. In this way, you enjoy both aspects of the fan experience. And unlike most other sports, finishing second or third means something in the Olympics; its not all about winning. Even for the athletes that don’t medal, many of them have personal best performances. No one cares about that in other sporting events – but in the Olympics that matters and has meaning.
And if you are in the US, you can experience the extra satisfaction of rooting for a bunch of athletes that aren’t sponsored by the government, but instead get their funding through private donations. Quite a contrast to the way the rest of the world does things.
i love to Figure Skate, and this has been my favorite sport ever since i was a kid.;~’