Losing the big game
My eldest son is an avid sports fan.
He particularly follows Barcelona FC in La Liga (because of Lionel Messi), Manchester United in the English Premiership (because so does Grandpa Larry), the Toronto Raptors in the NBA (because they're close), and the Arizona Cardinals in the NFL (because of Larry Fitzgerald). If none of that made much sense to you, don't worry, because the only part you really need to understand is that he takes his fandom of these teams very seriously. When they win, he's jubilant. When they lose, he's crushed.
He gets it from all sides of the family. His grandma Kathy, who has lived with us for much of the past few years, played college basketball for the University of Toronto and is never so vocal as when she's watching college sports. His mother has played soccer all her life and get's so emotionally involved in the games that she sometimes feels unsafe to operate motor vehicles after she loses. His father (we're talking about me here) played college rugby for the University of Guelph, still plays basketball each week, and follows most sports in at least a general way.
This is all context for my son's reaction when his Cardinals lost badly in the NFL semi-finals last night. He tried to hold it together, but there were quiet tears on several occasions, and he finally turned the game off rather than watch the inevitable conclusion. When his younger brother started teasing him, he didn't even have the capacity to respond. He just went to sleep in the spare room.
This morning I tried to chat with him a little (I know him well enough not to have tried last night), to share a little of what my years of playing and following sports has taught me – that it really doesn't matter that much in the end, that being a fan should be mostly about entertainment because there are much bigger things to worry about in the world, that there can only ever be one winner so almost every team ends a loser each year, and so forth.
None of this made much difference, of course, not to a fan so young and fervent, but it's a message that I think we might do well to reinforce more often. I love sports. I've played and followed them my whole life. But even as a sports fan I can see how ridiculous it is that we take so seriously the outcome of what are, in the end, just games. I no longer get too worked up if my teams win or lose. I play and I watch for exercise, fun, and entertainment. The sports media machine, however, is constantly telling us (and our impressionable kids) that this is “the big game”, that it's “all or nothing, do or die, win or go home”. The glory and the money and the accolades all go to the winners.
I'd rather my kids see things a bit differently. Yes, playing sports can provide great exercise, fun, camaraderie, and community building. Yes, watching very talented people play can be entertaining. On the other hand, none of it really matters very much. In the end, it's all just games, certainly nothing worth becoming angry or anxious over. Is it sad that your team lost? Sure, but they'll be back next year, and it won't make hardly any difference to your life in the meantime.
Luke Hill is a stay-at-home father of three boys, aged 10, 8, and 4. He has fathered, fostered, adopted, or provided a temporary home for kids anywhere between birth and university. He has taught college courses, adoption seminars, camp groups, Sunday School classes, rugby teams, not to mention his own homeschooled kids.
