Don’t Forget, It’s Just A Game…Yeah, Right

Why do sports matter?

How can men stay inside on the most beautiful Sunday of spring and watch a game where 10 millionaires in shorts run up and down the court with a basketball?

Here is the inside scoop for women who aren’t sports fans and don’t follow the games.

For a lot of guys, sports is more exciting than much of what occupies the rest of their lives.

The Internet is hot, but it’s not a tomahawk jam.

I want to defend the men who sit on the couch watching the game. They are psychologically connecting with something big and important, mythic and real.

Trust me. Watching the Sonics-Bulls series isn’t just an excuse not to mow the lawn. The struggles on the court are a metaphor for life itself.

Of course, I’m not watching it all that closely. I wanted the Utah Jazz to beat the Sonics because John Stockton grew up in Spokane.

I’m tired of Seattle worship.

I imagined John “Spokane” Stockton carrying his team to triumph over the big dog on the Puget Sound and then on to triumph over the hated Chicago Bulls, particularly Dennis “Bad Hair” Rodman.

Three seconds to go in Game 7 Score tied.

Stockton with the ball. He drives. Rodman steps up. Stockton leaps, eludes the outstretched arms and scores as time expires.

Afterward, he says: “I owe it all to my roots in Spokane. The good people there. The air they breathe. The dignity of their mown lawns.”

Dan Fitzgerald, athletic director at Gonzaga University and former coach of John Stockton, understands the adulation, the bonding, the bull of it all.

“We like to characterize our teams, to have them take on an identity for us,” the coach said. “I have people come up to me knowing that I coached John Stockton. They tell me what a great guy John Stockton is, how smart he is, how wonderful he is - all because he grew up in Spokane.”

Of course, these people really don’t know about John Stockton. They imagine he is a hero from their hometown and, by extension, feel a bit like heroes, too.

“It happens he is a great guy,” Fitzgerald said. “But on the court he is tougher than hell, mean as hell, competitive as hell. That’s what he is all about. He would give his right arm to win.”

That would be a mistake. A one-armed basketball player wouldn’t last long. But you get the point.

The whole enchilada of sport is a mix of what happens on the court and what fans imagine it all means in terms of personal character and their own lives.

The mixing and matching of personal character with athletic prowess complicates sports. The more Dennis Rodman sells tickets because of his hair, the more diluted the essence of sport becomes.

Winning with skill remains the heart of sport. God and TV ratings willing, winning will remain at the heart of why men are transfixed by sport. Men’s minds think a lot about winning.

Sure, being on national TV for your hair would be worth a laugh. But at some base level, guys want to be on top for their skill, not their scalp. They want to be victors and be lavished with recognition for it.

But there is more to the men-and-sport business than mere ego and skill. As it happens, men who watch sports quickly comprehend that winning also depends upon teamwork.

The hot dog who gets all the attention usually ends up on the losing end against a better team. This observation provides a highly civilizing effect on men as they trudge off to the office on Monday.

Now, let’s go really deep about all of this.

Ultimately, watching all those games on TV provides lessons about the inevitability of winning, losing and moving on.

Coaches understand these lessons.

“As a coach, I felt one of the most important things I could teach young men was how to win and how to lose,” explained Terry Irwin, recently retired head basketball coach at Central Valley High School. “When we won, I told them they needed to understand that there is always going to be someone better than they are.”

And when his team lost?

“I wanted to make sure that they kept that in perspective, to make sure they had a positive outlook toward the next day. I told them that each game is a new game, and that every time you walk on the floor you need to keep your work ethic, keep an unselfish attitude.”

Irwin also talked of the place sports occupy in life. “One of the great transformations of a sports career in high school comes when a kid hits his senior year and finally understands he isn’t going to the pros,” the coach said.

“When kids learn to accept that, to be OK with whatever happens, then they are ready to grow up.”

These are some reasons men keep watching, keep following sports.

They learn every day is not a victory. They understand that even the best sometimes fall short, but that tomorrow always comes and you need to be ready for it. They learn how to hang it up gracefully when the game is done.

So give your man a break.

He’s soaking up deep stuff in there in front of the Sonics game, even as the grass grows long outside.

, DataTimes