Why We Watch Sports

June 21, 2016

Years of watching sports, good and bad, and hours and hours invested into the pastime often leaves me wondering why I do this. Why am I not doing something more productive like cleaning out the garage? Sometimes you sit there in a relaxed state, taking in a golf tournament or a football game where your team is not playing, and no emotional expulsion will take place. The second you see an outstanding feat, your brain triggers your body to respond in rapture. The second you experience an umpire or referee making a call against your squad, the blood and venom boil over, and something not very pretty comes out of your mouth.

Our sports heroes are not always the first ones we saw on TV or at the stadium. For me, it was the older neighbor kids that were good basketball and baseball players. Our neighborhood was filled with families with children, this being the era of the baby boomers. This was before video games and child abductions, so we played outside constantly without adult supervision. I idolized the older kids on the block, but I also really liked wrestling and roller derby. These sports offered bigger-than-life action heroes fighting good against evil.

As I aged into my teen years, I often gravitated to athletes who were not the day's biggest stars. I found something in them I discovered in myself, even if I didn't know it at the time. I remember also liking oddballs like Mark "The Bird" Fydrych," Pistol Pete Maravich, and Billy "White Shoes" Johnson. They all had something unique about them which wasn't traditional that I still find gravitating towards.

I’m sure you can see your personality in the athletes and heroes you chose to follow in your formative years. If you liked Reggie Jackson, the slugger, or Michael Jordan growing up, you probably want the best of the best in most things in life. You demand excellence in yourself and others you deal with on a day to day to basis. Take a look; there is some validity to my simple little personality test.

Why do we, as spectators and fans, need our heroes? Most of the time, it is because of the skill level of their performance we admire, but it is also because we see ourselves in them. We marvel not just at their physical gifts, but it can be the way they handle themselves on the field of play. Nowadays, I find myself rooting for the older players who haven't received all the high accolades of others in their playing career. Okay, I am a sucker for the underdog.

On the contrary, the worst thing you can be called is a "bandwagon fan." You know the person who starts wearing the jersey when their team is in the first place and because everybody likes a winner. If you support the team that recently lost the championship, does that jersey get put away until they are winning again?

The most recent sports heroes to transcend to the highest of highs to be placed on the mantel of immortals has to be the feats of LeBron James. Sometimes he has been the bum and heel but nothing says more about him with his efforts in the NBA finals. He willed his team to beat the once unbeatable Golden State Warriors and gave Cleveland its first championship in professional sports in fifty-two years. Congrats to LeBron James, The Cavaliers, and the city of Cleveland.