Why I Watch March Madness
This piece original ran on a pop culture website in 2013 that has since been taken down.
This last Tuesday, I was confronted with a challenge. While lying down on my couch, my father walked in to me not only watching the NCAA women’s college basketball championship, but also critiquing the form of their jump shots, offensive sets, and defensive rotations. As a sports fan, it’s just what I do. When my father saw this, he was astounded at the new low my love of sports had hit. “It doesn’t get much sadder than this for you, does it?”
Without looking up, saying a word, or responding whatsoever, I instantly began to search the channels for a sadder sporting spectacle. MSG Varsity to the rescue! I then began to watch high school lacrosse, a sport I know nothing about involving schools I’ve never heard of on a channel I’d completely forgotten existed. The scariest part of it all was that once he left the room, I kept watching. In all honesty, I watched the rest of the game. And picked a side. And critiqued form, style, and effort. With about four minutes to go in the fourth quarter of the lacrosse game and twelve left in the women’s basketball blow out, and upon realizing I was deeply interested in each, I was forced to ask myself one question: Why do I watch sports so much, or even at all?
This question is not new to me. I’m an unimpressive 6 foot 1, 220 pound English major at a university that puts out nearly irrelevant teams in every Division 1 sport. Even now, as Rutgers takes its biggest sports step forward in joining the Big 10, it has taken its most public step back with the Mike Rice scandal and subsequent resignation of Athletic Director Tim Pernetti, who got us into the Big 10 in the first place. (I’m excluding Rutgers winning the 1869 college football championship as its greatest accomplishment because they were actually crowned co-champions…in a league of 2). I grew up playing sports with my friends, but playing piano in public. I was never known as a sports guy, but rather as a music guy. The circle that I’m typically surrounded by sees football as men in tights, hockey as toothless Canadians, and basketball as something reserved for people at least a foot taller than them with a tattoo to limb ratio approaching 5 to 1. Sports are for the aggressive, the simple, the ones who don’t get the things that really matter. I get this question a lot, and I’ve gotten quite used to answering it.
When I was seven years old, I used to run back and forth in my living room pretending I was every member of the New York Giants simultaneously. I used to take my alphabet blocks, put team acronyms on the coffee table, and re-enact my favorite games and plays. To this day, my strong suit in math is adding by threes and sevens. That year, I went trick-or-treating as a New York Giants football player. As well as the year after that. And the year after that. And the year after that as well. Before I got into first grade, I would wake up at 7am, throw an English muffin into the toaster (and by that I mean ask my mom), and turn on Sportscenter. Then, I’d watch ESPN until noon. The same episode would repeat every hour. I didn’t care. I was taking it all in. To me, athletes were heroes.
Today, I still feel the same way about them. Athletes are rewarded for displaying the qualities I most want in myself. They are brave, strong, quick, decisive, and able to stand when pressure reaches its peak. When I see sports, I see stories. I see people betting on themselves and giving everything they have to obtain their goal. Sports are not simply the study of a game; they are the study of people. Sports show me things about myself, things about other people, things about value, trust, aggression properly channeled, hope, and belief. Many times when I’m facing something difficult, I give myself a sports analogy. A fair amount of my brain-dump type writing begins with me assigning myself a position in a sport and giving myself instructions on how to run the next few plays. I walk through life coaching myself.
I’ve heard the argument that literature is worth reading because it helps humanize people, adds to an emotional vocabulary, and spreads ideas worth spreading. I’d like to make the same case for sports. In the years to come, I’m quite confident that I’ll compare nagging problems to Louisville’s press defense, quick decisiveness with Aaron Rogers or Peyton Manning tearing apart the holes in a zone defense, and incompetence with the entire New York Jets front office (I was going to apologize for that shot, but I’m totally not sorry). Sports help me see the world, think through life, and make confident choices. Sports give me examples to look back on, both good and bad, and learn from.
This is why on a Tuesday night, I can watch high school lacrosse and see things. The athletes are characters and the game is a story. This is why I watch sports as much as I do, why I care to learn strategies, and why philosophies of teams mean something to me. I’m an avid sports fan, and I like to think I’m a better person for it.