Why sports are important...championships!!

[nickagneta]

Many different and much better writers than I have speculated on the American and worldwide phenomenom of the love for sports and why it is so important to us. The love for competition, the love of being affiliated with a winner, the love for being involved in a team, goal-oriented endeavor that can teach the young morals and lessons on growing up have all been bandied about as reasons for our love of sports. I want to throw out another reason: winning that championship.

Now before I go into the following of your favorite sports team and the feelings it gives one when they win, I want to ask, have you personally ever won a championship? I don't care on what level, but have you been personally involved in a sports competition where either you or your team have won a championship? If not have you ever competed for a championship and been the runner up?

I have. My freshman year of high school I played for the freshman football team and we went undefeated and won the GBL(Greater Boston League) championship. It was an unbelievable time for me. I didn't start but did get good playing time and each win brought a new thrill and as the wins piled up, the feeling that we were all collectively a part of something special started sinking in. Practices flew and were fun but hard. Getting to game day was a relief but a job and when we won again, the locker room after was louder than standing next to a jet and the feeling was thrilling.

Winning that last game and going undefeated and knowing we had just won the championship was....well, there's just not words to describe it. Exhillarating, thrilling, exciting, none of those words work. Intoxicating is probably the closest I can come. I had 10-12 guys on top of me as I ended up somewhere on the bottom of the pig pile and I didn't care.

Later on, the school had a ceremony for us during school where they gave us all trophies and free championship jackets. It was great. They called each of us up to get the trophy and jacket and went alphabetically. I was first. Going in front of 500 people(the entire freshman class) and having all my team mates chanting my name behind me while getting applause from the assembly was just one of the best feelings I ever had where I wasn't naked.

I've also been on the other end of things. A couple of times actually. I lost a city Little League championship, losing the series 2-1 and the last game 8-7 on a walk off HR by the opposition. I coached my sons' under-12 soccer team that went to the state championship in Rhode Island and we took on the mostly Central American centric, Central Falls team who was decimating everyone they played and we lost 2-1. Both times the feeling after the games was just awful.

Having to stand in front of my sons and their team and convince them that what they accomplished was simply stunning and that I was proud of them all to the point of bursting and that they should feel the same way was tough. Very tough. No one wants to come in second after already going through that season feeling of winning and that something special was happening and having exciting, down to the last second moments in games and pulling them out. You are on such a high and then the low. It's a horrible feeling. Its worse watching your sons have to go through it.

But as we grow 99.9% of us stop playing competitive sports. And so we can never feel that direct feeling of organized competition and winning it all ever again. So what do we do? We relive those feeling vicariously through our sports heroes for our local team and return to those feelings that we once felt. Yeah, it's not the same but it is [dang] close.

And that's why I think we all love sports the way we do, because of the pursuit of that championship and the feeling it gives us inside. Sure, we love the sport and the game. We come to fall in love with the teams we follow and the games we follow, but for me, I think we do so not because of those teams or the game. I think they are just vehicles that lead us to that feeling we are addicted to. They are conduits to something more, something better, something we all want.

Winning a championship and how that makes us feel inside.

[Redz]

Nick, the championships are great, but I also think (as you eluded too), just taking part in a truly great competition is very memorable too.

I played on a couple of basketball champion teams, but honestly I have better memories of simply partaking in games where both sides were clearly giving their all, and the competition level was exceptional.  If that can happen at a championship level - so much the better (which is what makes the truly great championships extra memorable; ala McEnroe/Borg etc..)

Thanks for stirring up some great memories though.

My favorite was winning the 9th Grade Church League championship.  My non-Lutheran buddy was playing for the Lutheran church team (they were short on numbers), he recruited me (Jewish), and the 6-9 kid (Catholic) and we pretty well romped our way through the league.  When it came time for the championship game, I had to skip it because of my cousin's Bat Mitzvah!  Oh, the irony.  I was so bummed out, because of what you spoke of - the joy of going through a season and playing for a champ.  The team we were playing against was the only team to beat us all year.  I was our leading scorer, and I wasn't going to be there.  Really bummed me out. 

Anyhow, they won without me!