It has been a while.
The events of these times demand a response. I'm reminded a little of the beginning of a Kingston Trio song, "the MTA." Allow me to paraphrase slightly:
"These are the times that try men's souls. In the course of our nation's history, the people of [Utah] have rallied bravely whenever the rights of men have been threatened.
Today a new crisis has arisen, the [Utah AD Chris Hill and his athletic department] is attempting to levy a burdensome tax on the population in the form of [the elimination of a historic tradition of the yearly BYU-Utah rivalry game.] Citizens, hear me out...."
Yes, this is a little tongue-in-cheek. I'm hoping a little whimsicality will temper what is, in the final analysis, an emotional lashing-out in text.
Really, that's what the BYU Utah football game is. Its not about conference allegiance, strength of schedule, or national prestige. For the fan, it has none of the tiresome trappings of checks and balance sheets. Its about emotion, the conflict and investment of emotion created by nigh a century of history. More than the length of time, the individual and remarkable incidents of that history have made it a passionately indelible part of every Utah and BYU fan's memory. The games aren't just dates and scores, they are legends.
They have names--34-31 parts I and II, 4th and 18 or "Magic Happens", Even I Intercepted Max Hall, Harline is Still Open, The Rice Bowl, The Great Ute-shoot, Kaneshiro's Klank--and it goes on. Even years that fans don't dub a name for the game, even when its close and ugly or a painful/gleeful blowout, the sheer vigor with which this game is endowed far surpasses any other during the year. That one Saturday outweighs the rest for investment as a fan.
As Jason Franchuck of the Provo Daily Herald put it: "Because when the lean years come — and, sorry, Utah, there will again be lean years — it's those familiar Saturdays that make the season worth living."
But fans are not in control. Chris Hill, his staff, and by extension the university leadership that has given him this power is in control, and above the emotion and enjoyment of the tradition for fans, they value the almighty dollar. In their eyes, it is obvious that football and other athletic programs do not exist for the highest enjoyment of the game, or for the thrill of the ordinary fan, but for that greater paycheck always on the horizon.
This isn't to say Hill or the university is alone or solely to blame in this desire. Indeed, college football--sports in general are all falling prey to men counting money in coffers. That's what realignment, "balanced scheduling" and conference affiliation is all about. That, in and of itself, is not all bad. Its part of the production. Its the wizard behind the curtain, making the magic on stage happen. Its needful, and BYU like any great program takes it into account.
Its when the wizard takes center stage and the magic stops that the problem arises.
In talking about the issue with a couple of Ute fans, I get a range of responses. One said (albeit half-jokingly) "We're tired of holding you guys up. You're just upset about your strength of schedule falling, anyway." Some are as passionate and upset as I at its passing. One thought it wasn't really "passing" at all, and that it would continue in the future even with the break in 2014-2015.
There are few on both sides that think the whole thing has gotten too mean, and too bitter, and is better off going.
Those people are wrong.
For BYU fans, its not about strength of schedule. Setting aside the fact that getting an elite program historically better than Utah in September has proven to be a relatively easy task, I would take Utah over yearly tilts with Michigan, Notre Dame and Oklahoma combined. The reason BYU wants to play Utah is the fact that they are Utah, not their relative ascension in the college football pantheon, dubious as it is.
Those that feel the rivalry is too much have, in most cases, personally allowed it to become so, and would be more wise to look to their own improvement.
As for if this hiatus is just a temporary setback, I don't know. I certainly hope that is the case. Regardless, its highly unlikely that Hill and Co will issue a message the equivalent of "No, wait, we take it back." The creeping worry there is that if the game is devalued once, with foot firmly in door, it will be devalued again and again.
Moreover, the issue is with 2014-2015. In those years, it will be gone. Incoming freshman, both players and regular students, will miss a large piece of the college football experience. The one guaranteed important game, regardless of all other wins and losses, will but cut out. Don't get me wrong: going against Hawaii and Utah State is great. But they aren't Utah. And as far as I'm concerned, no one else can be.
I have never hated Utah. In fact, I've been the kind fan that said, "Utah can win every game against every team but one." But, like these times, my opinion is changing. I don't want the game to stop, but if it does, the blame will be their own. And having burned their bridges for their 30 pieces of silver, may they go down in flame as well.
Friday, July 13, 2012
Thursday, October 6, 2011
Litany Against the Anti-hero
There is a plague among modern story protagonists.
It has spread across the media zones worse than the pocks, and decidedly more ugly. It infects TV shows you watch and hear about, movies that come out every week, books and games you consume. More grim than Pestilence on his pale horse, we are set about this day by the vainglorious, egocentric machinations of the Anti-hero.
Anti-hero characters (or what some would call Byronic heroes) are characters that appeal because of their prodigious skills, or flashy actions, or humorous attitude, but really could care less about the human condition. They use, lie, cheat, murder and worse in the name of the Almighty Me, and as long as they do so in a clever or comical way, they sell. And they sell very well.
I can understand some of the reasons for the movement. The Noble Hero schtick can get old. People enjoy and believe in characters with noticeable flaws, because they can better relate to them. They like them because they are just like they are--greedy, over ambitious, vain--only better at it.
Heaven forbid there be protagonists that we LOOK UP to. That their example could inspire, I dunno, IMPROVEMENT from our current attitude or behavior. Especially when the protagonist is undergoing this improvement themselves.
This is why in my mind the perfect protagonist is one that moves from selfishness to selflessness, mediocrity to mastery, a flawed nature to, well, if not flawlessness at least something much improved. Even if they start with a selfish desire--fame, revenge, wealth, gratification, etc--if through the course of events they realize that there is a world beyond themselves that just might be a teensy bit more important, and then act on that, you have a winner.
Lets take three somewhat generalized hero archetypes for comparison--the Stalwart Hero, who is good from the beginning and has to struggle against all that isn't; the Anti-hero, who never really is or becomes good but sure looks cool; and the hero that becomes one by improvement--the Redemption Hero.
A lot of the "classic" hero characters are the Stalwarts--Superman, Captain America, James Bond, Son Goku, Prince Charming, Ulysses, Beowulf, Attila the Hun.
Okay, that last one was to check if you were paying attention.
These types are definitive in their stance. The start out as people with a distinct uprightness in character, possessing a strong moral bent instilled on them from their first appearance, and are moved into action by a dichotomy between their mental ideal and the facts of the world they live in. Their opposition mostly arises from the great number of forces that gather against their fool-hearty idea that (if actions are taken in terms of their simplest motivation) selfishness and cruelty should be opposed.
There is nothing overtly wrong with this type. It is simply that they were formerly so common that one needs to try very hard to create one that stands out from the rest. This is partially why American comic books don't attempt to make many new heroes, but simply reinvent the same ones generation after generation.
(Of course, there are also a group of the Stalwarts that, for some reason, start out good and fall. This is a separate Tragic Hero category, or among the best kind of villains if they go that far, and we'll save that for another day.)
Anti-heroes include any number of thief-glorification films like "the Italian Job" and "Oceans Eleven" and its sequels/remakes, characters like Don Juan and the Count of Monte Cristo, shows like "Dexter" and "House" and "Leverage" and (most ironically of the bunch) "Heroes." From there, add just about any reality TV show you could name... and that is a long list.
Today is the age of the Everyman as protagonist, and not just in social position, but whatever flaws, corruptions, and greeds anyone could have. More so, the "common person" has been demeaned to be something basically self-serving, lewd, vain, and incorrigible. These never really improve their character, and their antagonists are always people like themselves only perhaps slightly more nasty, or are presented as deluded idealists. The Anti-hero's motivation is self gratification, via revenge, fame, vulgar living and gain in the most flamboyant and self-glorifying way possible. The good they do is circumstantial, and they remain selfish and vulgar and unrepentant to the end--but in a flashy, cocky, or somehow satisfyingly bestial, under-brain way.
(Contrary to popular belief, I disagree that Batman falls into this hero category. Though grittier and darker than other Stalwarts, his supreme moral dedication and unmoving virtues, coupled with his selfless nature, cannot make him a Byronic hero unless the definition is decidedly more stretched.)
Recently, I began to watch a Japanese anime called "Desert Punk" which falls emphatically into the Byronic, Anti-Hero category. In a post-apocalyptic desert version of the Kanto area of Japan, people eek out their livelihoods by robbery, swindling, murder, and largely think about little but water and sex.
The main character, a man known as Sunabozu, the Ghost of the Desert, is a famous Handyman who is able to accomplish any job for the right amount of money. He thrives in the corruption inherent in the culture, and is the main character because he's more violent, more lewd, more outrageous and more skilled than anybody else. As the story goes on, his main goals continue to be money and large-breasted women, and his antagonists are swindlers, kidnappers, robbers and hunters as maligned as himself--or often, not quite as maligned as himself. There is never an overreaching problem or plot to be solved. It begins, wanders, and ends in a desert of shallow humor and opponents as worthy as him of succeeding, but don't because he happens to be the protagonist. Sometimes, arbitrarily, he loses.
And when it happens, you really don't care.
This story could have had potential. The setup and world created are not actually too bad. The break down of order of a post catastrophic event allows for hero characters to fill in the gaps where law and order cannot reach, to rise up when the general values of the whole sink. But it never is taken advantage of. Sunabozu makes no real difference in his world. He never improves in any way. While his antics were at first amusing, they wore thin. He was immanently shallow, humorous only for the humiliating failure of his pathetic life struggles, and although admittedly occasionally flashy to watch, he never became inspiring. His actions never gave rise that that rush of adrenaline that accompanies the Hero Standing in the Face of Adversity.
This is the problem with most Anti-heroes. They entertain, but nothing else. There is nothing to cheer for, or if there is, its a Cheer to the Self-Centered.
But the protagonist doesn't have to remain in this state. By a change occurring, even if slowly, you get the best of the relatibility of a flawed person and the inspiration of a good one. Redemption Heroes are exemplified by Spider-man, Cloud Strife, Jean Valjean, Himura Kenshin, Spawn, Nicolas D Wolfwood; shows like "Human Target" and movies like Hancock (which wasn't really that good, but is a good example of the archetype).
And, unfortunately, not much else.
I'm willing to bet even among the examples used above, a majority are all but unknown to the greater set of the "main stream", especially in the United States. But there is one Redemption Hero that definitely ventured into the center stage of mass media as a movie blockbuster: Iron Man.
Tony Stark is rich, but incredibly flawed: CEO and chief inventor of a weapons manufacturing giant, he is brilliant and cavalier. His interests chiefly concern making cool toys that kill people under a thin (but ultimately vital) veil of patriotism, and womanizing, which, really, he does more diligently than his job.
But a change happens. He is kidnapped, taken from his riches and position, and thrust into the real world. But the kicker is not what actually, physically happens to him: its what he sees happening as a consequence of his actions.
"I saw young Americans killed by the very weapons I created to defend them and protect them. And I saw that I had become part of a system that is comfortable with zero-accountability."
This effects a change on him. His guilt, his patriotism, show him that there is a world of suffering he can cause by being callus, overbearing, or just not very careful. He takes a dieing man's last wish to heart: "Don't waste it. Don't waste your life, Stark."
Does this instantly turn him in a paradigm by every moral compass? No. Even those changes that do take place take some time. But the tiny logical and emotional revelation that he might be a small part of a larger world, that he has responsibility to it, is titanic. This IS the movie. Everything else is little but the shiny fluff and filler that rounds out a Hollywood blockbuster.
These three archetypes are just that--types. There are a thousand, thousand more variations on the protagonist. Many are complex and difficult to quantify. But it is sad that we can become so easily satisfied with the flashy, false hero, drowning in sex appeal and machismo, but shallower than a bathroom basin in the good things. There is no thrill in their struggle, no awe like which comes from standing against the night, from fighting against evil in high places. At most, the Anti-hero is comic fodder, and possesses a limited value even in that.
They don't have to be Supermen. We needn't outlaw everything but firefighters and boy scouts. But an ordinary, and yes, at least somewhat flawed person standing up and saying "This will not due--I will no longer allow it to be this way"--a woman or man or child throwing off the chains of the mediocre and the pathetic to roar in the face of the ugly world--that, friends, is a hero. Not merely a protagonist, but beacon, banner, and blinding light.
The final difference is the difference between being selfish and serving. A hero by the definition that I enjoy is one that either stays within the latter, or moves there in the course of the plot.
I could do with one or two more of those, in stories. Those are the ones you can depend on to stand firm when stuff gets rough, to grit their teeth when the crap hits the fan. The kind that make me feel, and believe.
Those are always the best.
It has spread across the media zones worse than the pocks, and decidedly more ugly. It infects TV shows you watch and hear about, movies that come out every week, books and games you consume. More grim than Pestilence on his pale horse, we are set about this day by the vainglorious, egocentric machinations of the Anti-hero.
Anti-hero characters (or what some would call Byronic heroes) are characters that appeal because of their prodigious skills, or flashy actions, or humorous attitude, but really could care less about the human condition. They use, lie, cheat, murder and worse in the name of the Almighty Me, and as long as they do so in a clever or comical way, they sell. And they sell very well.
I can understand some of the reasons for the movement. The Noble Hero schtick can get old. People enjoy and believe in characters with noticeable flaws, because they can better relate to them. They like them because they are just like they are--greedy, over ambitious, vain--only better at it.
Heaven forbid there be protagonists that we LOOK UP to. That their example could inspire, I dunno, IMPROVEMENT from our current attitude or behavior. Especially when the protagonist is undergoing this improvement themselves.
This is why in my mind the perfect protagonist is one that moves from selfishness to selflessness, mediocrity to mastery, a flawed nature to, well, if not flawlessness at least something much improved. Even if they start with a selfish desire--fame, revenge, wealth, gratification, etc--if through the course of events they realize that there is a world beyond themselves that just might be a teensy bit more important, and then act on that, you have a winner.
Lets take three somewhat generalized hero archetypes for comparison--the Stalwart Hero, who is good from the beginning and has to struggle against all that isn't; the Anti-hero, who never really is or becomes good but sure looks cool; and the hero that becomes one by improvement--the Redemption Hero.
A lot of the "classic" hero characters are the Stalwarts--Superman, Captain America, James Bond, Son Goku, Prince Charming, Ulysses, Beowulf, Attila the Hun.
Okay, that last one was to check if you were paying attention.
These types are definitive in their stance. The start out as people with a distinct uprightness in character, possessing a strong moral bent instilled on them from their first appearance, and are moved into action by a dichotomy between their mental ideal and the facts of the world they live in. Their opposition mostly arises from the great number of forces that gather against their fool-hearty idea that (if actions are taken in terms of their simplest motivation) selfishness and cruelty should be opposed.
There is nothing overtly wrong with this type. It is simply that they were formerly so common that one needs to try very hard to create one that stands out from the rest. This is partially why American comic books don't attempt to make many new heroes, but simply reinvent the same ones generation after generation.
(Of course, there are also a group of the Stalwarts that, for some reason, start out good and fall. This is a separate Tragic Hero category, or among the best kind of villains if they go that far, and we'll save that for another day.)
Anti-heroes include any number of thief-glorification films like "the Italian Job" and "Oceans Eleven" and its sequels/remakes, characters like Don Juan and the Count of Monte Cristo, shows like "Dexter" and "House" and "Leverage" and (most ironically of the bunch) "Heroes." From there, add just about any reality TV show you could name... and that is a long list.
Today is the age of the Everyman as protagonist, and not just in social position, but whatever flaws, corruptions, and greeds anyone could have. More so, the "common person" has been demeaned to be something basically self-serving, lewd, vain, and incorrigible. These never really improve their character, and their antagonists are always people like themselves only perhaps slightly more nasty, or are presented as deluded idealists. The Anti-hero's motivation is self gratification, via revenge, fame, vulgar living and gain in the most flamboyant and self-glorifying way possible. The good they do is circumstantial, and they remain selfish and vulgar and unrepentant to the end--but in a flashy, cocky, or somehow satisfyingly bestial, under-brain way.
(Contrary to popular belief, I disagree that Batman falls into this hero category. Though grittier and darker than other Stalwarts, his supreme moral dedication and unmoving virtues, coupled with his selfless nature, cannot make him a Byronic hero unless the definition is decidedly more stretched.)
Recently, I began to watch a Japanese anime called "Desert Punk" which falls emphatically into the Byronic, Anti-Hero category. In a post-apocalyptic desert version of the Kanto area of Japan, people eek out their livelihoods by robbery, swindling, murder, and largely think about little but water and sex.
The main character, a man known as Sunabozu, the Ghost of the Desert, is a famous Handyman who is able to accomplish any job for the right amount of money. He thrives in the corruption inherent in the culture, and is the main character because he's more violent, more lewd, more outrageous and more skilled than anybody else. As the story goes on, his main goals continue to be money and large-breasted women, and his antagonists are swindlers, kidnappers, robbers and hunters as maligned as himself--or often, not quite as maligned as himself. There is never an overreaching problem or plot to be solved. It begins, wanders, and ends in a desert of shallow humor and opponents as worthy as him of succeeding, but don't because he happens to be the protagonist. Sometimes, arbitrarily, he loses.
And when it happens, you really don't care.
This story could have had potential. The setup and world created are not actually too bad. The break down of order of a post catastrophic event allows for hero characters to fill in the gaps where law and order cannot reach, to rise up when the general values of the whole sink. But it never is taken advantage of. Sunabozu makes no real difference in his world. He never improves in any way. While his antics were at first amusing, they wore thin. He was immanently shallow, humorous only for the humiliating failure of his pathetic life struggles, and although admittedly occasionally flashy to watch, he never became inspiring. His actions never gave rise that that rush of adrenaline that accompanies the Hero Standing in the Face of Adversity.
This is the problem with most Anti-heroes. They entertain, but nothing else. There is nothing to cheer for, or if there is, its a Cheer to the Self-Centered.
But the protagonist doesn't have to remain in this state. By a change occurring, even if slowly, you get the best of the relatibility of a flawed person and the inspiration of a good one. Redemption Heroes are exemplified by Spider-man, Cloud Strife, Jean Valjean, Himura Kenshin, Spawn, Nicolas D Wolfwood; shows like "Human Target" and movies like Hancock (which wasn't really that good, but is a good example of the archetype).
And, unfortunately, not much else.
I'm willing to bet even among the examples used above, a majority are all but unknown to the greater set of the "main stream", especially in the United States. But there is one Redemption Hero that definitely ventured into the center stage of mass media as a movie blockbuster: Iron Man.
Tony Stark is rich, but incredibly flawed: CEO and chief inventor of a weapons manufacturing giant, he is brilliant and cavalier. His interests chiefly concern making cool toys that kill people under a thin (but ultimately vital) veil of patriotism, and womanizing, which, really, he does more diligently than his job.
But a change happens. He is kidnapped, taken from his riches and position, and thrust into the real world. But the kicker is not what actually, physically happens to him: its what he sees happening as a consequence of his actions.
"I saw young Americans killed by the very weapons I created to defend them and protect them. And I saw that I had become part of a system that is comfortable with zero-accountability."
This effects a change on him. His guilt, his patriotism, show him that there is a world of suffering he can cause by being callus, overbearing, or just not very careful. He takes a dieing man's last wish to heart: "Don't waste it. Don't waste your life, Stark."
Does this instantly turn him in a paradigm by every moral compass? No. Even those changes that do take place take some time. But the tiny logical and emotional revelation that he might be a small part of a larger world, that he has responsibility to it, is titanic. This IS the movie. Everything else is little but the shiny fluff and filler that rounds out a Hollywood blockbuster.
These three archetypes are just that--types. There are a thousand, thousand more variations on the protagonist. Many are complex and difficult to quantify. But it is sad that we can become so easily satisfied with the flashy, false hero, drowning in sex appeal and machismo, but shallower than a bathroom basin in the good things. There is no thrill in their struggle, no awe like which comes from standing against the night, from fighting against evil in high places. At most, the Anti-hero is comic fodder, and possesses a limited value even in that.
They don't have to be Supermen. We needn't outlaw everything but firefighters and boy scouts. But an ordinary, and yes, at least somewhat flawed person standing up and saying "This will not due--I will no longer allow it to be this way"--a woman or man or child throwing off the chains of the mediocre and the pathetic to roar in the face of the ugly world--that, friends, is a hero. Not merely a protagonist, but beacon, banner, and blinding light.
The final difference is the difference between being selfish and serving. A hero by the definition that I enjoy is one that either stays within the latter, or moves there in the course of the plot.
I could do with one or two more of those, in stories. Those are the ones you can depend on to stand firm when stuff gets rough, to grit their teeth when the crap hits the fan. The kind that make me feel, and believe.
Those are always the best.
Tuesday, September 20, 2011
Sometimes, You're a Loser
Have you ever really lost? Been totally outclassed, or just failed so miserably that the competition walked all over you?
And not just any competition. Your rival--your opposite number.
Sitting in the stands, I watched the fans filter out out en masse with the final quarter yet to start. It was eerily quiet after the opening roar, the stadium once full of shaking white pompoms replaced with one full of shaking heads. One fan straightened his hat, stood, nodded to us as if he needed to apologize, and said, "Sorry. Its just too painful." He joined the trudging crowd. There is no other way to describe that kind of walk, like you're grinding through mush with your feet.
And I can understand. Sometimes a loss is not just a loss, but an utter defeat, a complete and total capitulation. You get to feeling pretty low. You have to start trying to explain things, but nothing really comes. There's not much you can say but, "We're better than this. Everything just went wrong."
This was my niece's first college football game as a student. How odd it was that we had to keep telling her things like, "These games are really fun. Usually. Really!" when I'd seen so many victories there, felt the rush of so many good times. Even defeats usually had some small moral value. But not this game. It came to the point were there were no excuses to grasp at. There was nothing to say. There's simply no way to even start to explain it when something you really believed in seems to fail you.
So what's next?
People are arguing schemes, stats, and potential, quantifying emotional damage and psychological reactions, making proclamations and if-then statements. Let those with experience and savvy in those realms pour down what help they can, but I have a limited knowledge of those arenas. Instead I just keep thinking: it isn't over. We want it too much, and too much is on the line.
I won't let it be over.
2004 was the first year my brother took me to games. We had an improbable win against a weak Notre Dame team to open the season, but then tumbled through three consecutive losses, including two home games, finishing the season 5-6. This was also the year that the coach was fired for somewhat shady recruiting as well as the losses, when starters by the truckload were kicked off the team.
Somehow, I still became a fan. A stay-to-the-end-no-matter-what-happens fan, a guarantee-to-be-there-if-life-and-limbs-are-intact kind of fan. And maybe I'm the exception, or maybe I'm deluded, but I believe. I believe in in overcoming weaknesses and righting the course. I believe in improvement, both dramatic and small, and in the chance to make good on broken promises, and in the worth of the team and what they stand for. I believe in victory.
And you should believe it to. No matter what you cheer for, what you support, if you don't have that kind of belief, you're living a hollow, shallow husk of what living is supposed to be like. When you put no faith in anything, never soulfully throw in with a side and a cause, you may never feel the bitterness of defeat, the humiliation of a sound trouncing, but you'll never have the rush of a close battle one, or a foe beaten.
Or that ever essential experience: rising again when you fall.
I sat in my seat until the scoreboard was all zeroes. It was getting cold, and there was nothing really to warm me. I joined the trudgers and made my way home, without so much as a farewell, I think, and sat in my room and watched things explode on my screen until late into the night. I slept in, had a day of rest, and kept quiet. I admit avoiding sports articles for a few days.
But when this Friday comes, and another opponent comes and another chance comes, I'll be back just where I was, in the stands with my hands cupped over my mouth, roaring out with all I've got. Because I still believe.
Yes, we lost. Sometimes you lose, badly, and fall far.
So take this year's theme to heart: Rise Up.
And not just any competition. Your rival--your opposite number.
Sitting in the stands, I watched the fans filter out out en masse with the final quarter yet to start. It was eerily quiet after the opening roar, the stadium once full of shaking white pompoms replaced with one full of shaking heads. One fan straightened his hat, stood, nodded to us as if he needed to apologize, and said, "Sorry. Its just too painful." He joined the trudging crowd. There is no other way to describe that kind of walk, like you're grinding through mush with your feet.
And I can understand. Sometimes a loss is not just a loss, but an utter defeat, a complete and total capitulation. You get to feeling pretty low. You have to start trying to explain things, but nothing really comes. There's not much you can say but, "We're better than this. Everything just went wrong."
This was my niece's first college football game as a student. How odd it was that we had to keep telling her things like, "These games are really fun. Usually. Really!" when I'd seen so many victories there, felt the rush of so many good times. Even defeats usually had some small moral value. But not this game. It came to the point were there were no excuses to grasp at. There was nothing to say. There's simply no way to even start to explain it when something you really believed in seems to fail you.
So what's next?
People are arguing schemes, stats, and potential, quantifying emotional damage and psychological reactions, making proclamations and if-then statements. Let those with experience and savvy in those realms pour down what help they can, but I have a limited knowledge of those arenas. Instead I just keep thinking: it isn't over. We want it too much, and too much is on the line.
I won't let it be over.
2004 was the first year my brother took me to games. We had an improbable win against a weak Notre Dame team to open the season, but then tumbled through three consecutive losses, including two home games, finishing the season 5-6. This was also the year that the coach was fired for somewhat shady recruiting as well as the losses, when starters by the truckload were kicked off the team.
Somehow, I still became a fan. A stay-to-the-end-no-matter-what-happens fan, a guarantee-to-be-there-if-life-and-limbs-are-intact kind of fan. And maybe I'm the exception, or maybe I'm deluded, but I believe. I believe in in overcoming weaknesses and righting the course. I believe in improvement, both dramatic and small, and in the chance to make good on broken promises, and in the worth of the team and what they stand for. I believe in victory.
And you should believe it to. No matter what you cheer for, what you support, if you don't have that kind of belief, you're living a hollow, shallow husk of what living is supposed to be like. When you put no faith in anything, never soulfully throw in with a side and a cause, you may never feel the bitterness of defeat, the humiliation of a sound trouncing, but you'll never have the rush of a close battle one, or a foe beaten.
Or that ever essential experience: rising again when you fall.
I sat in my seat until the scoreboard was all zeroes. It was getting cold, and there was nothing really to warm me. I joined the trudgers and made my way home, without so much as a farewell, I think, and sat in my room and watched things explode on my screen until late into the night. I slept in, had a day of rest, and kept quiet. I admit avoiding sports articles for a few days.
But when this Friday comes, and another opponent comes and another chance comes, I'll be back just where I was, in the stands with my hands cupped over my mouth, roaring out with all I've got. Because I still believe.
Yes, we lost. Sometimes you lose, badly, and fall far.
So take this year's theme to heart: Rise Up.
Thursday, September 15, 2011
Death of a Rivalry?
Somehow this blog has become a place for notes on sports.
The issue of the week is, of course, the Rivalry. Those peddlers of pointless speculation known as sports writers and their attendant fan comment sections are engaging in the usual hand-wringing--the Rivalry is too hateful, people need to calm down, bring back civility, etc. In an of itself, this has a familiar flavor, and having attended games at both stadiums, I can somewhat agree. I was never subject to projectiles or assaults, but a fair number of taunts, jeers, and gestures have come my way. On the other hand, last year all the people trying to go out of their way to be friendly was a little bizarre.
Ironically, at the same time the new fad of this year's competition is the mantra of "the Rivalry is dying." They list several reasons for this: "We're not in the same conference, no championship is on the line; it just isn't the same in the third week; there are no national rankings or bowl projections riding on this; nobody cares." Local news did a spot interviewing random mall goers who seemed specially selected for a fine mix of ignorance, apathy, and scruffiness (seriously, some people should not grow facial hair). Even coaches and players are being guarded about that they think, but generally indicate the separation is "strange". Soon we'll have street-side mourners rending their clothes and wailing, proclaiming the Doom of the Rivalry, and then going back home and writing articles to that effect in the Herald and the Tribune.
And we haven't even played the game yet.
I think we're a little too early in the process to start the funeral pyre for the Red vs Blue. The good squire may have taken the arrow bearing the message of independence and conference affiliation in the gut ("Message for you, sir"), but I think we should take care not to jump to soon to assault the castle and take vengeance in his name.
For me, it was never about the national ranking, or the conference title. It was the compounded memory of wins an losses, 4 and 18s and blocked field goals, hard hits and penalty after penalty, for calls that send one crowd howling in outrage and the other in glee. It was the game itself. The day. The last play.
So don't tell me the Rivalry is dying. I'm tired of hearing "it just won't be the same". Those kinds of things are determined on the field, in the stadium, in the crowd. Then, with game over flashing in our eyes, if you feel so inclined, bring in the coroner and the M.E.s, give in to your urge to head-wag and hand-wring. But don't be too surprised when the dust has cleared that though wounded, Concorde stands up and says "I'm not quite dead, sir."
The issue of the week is, of course, the Rivalry. Those peddlers of pointless speculation known as sports writers and their attendant fan comment sections are engaging in the usual hand-wringing--the Rivalry is too hateful, people need to calm down, bring back civility, etc. In an of itself, this has a familiar flavor, and having attended games at both stadiums, I can somewhat agree. I was never subject to projectiles or assaults, but a fair number of taunts, jeers, and gestures have come my way. On the other hand, last year all the people trying to go out of their way to be friendly was a little bizarre.
Ironically, at the same time the new fad of this year's competition is the mantra of "the Rivalry is dying." They list several reasons for this: "We're not in the same conference, no championship is on the line; it just isn't the same in the third week; there are no national rankings or bowl projections riding on this; nobody cares." Local news did a spot interviewing random mall goers who seemed specially selected for a fine mix of ignorance, apathy, and scruffiness (seriously, some people should not grow facial hair). Even coaches and players are being guarded about that they think, but generally indicate the separation is "strange". Soon we'll have street-side mourners rending their clothes and wailing, proclaiming the Doom of the Rivalry, and then going back home and writing articles to that effect in the Herald and the Tribune.
And we haven't even played the game yet.
I think we're a little too early in the process to start the funeral pyre for the Red vs Blue. The good squire may have taken the arrow bearing the message of independence and conference affiliation in the gut ("Message for you, sir"), but I think we should take care not to jump to soon to assault the castle and take vengeance in his name.
For me, it was never about the national ranking, or the conference title. It was the compounded memory of wins an losses, 4 and 18s and blocked field goals, hard hits and penalty after penalty, for calls that send one crowd howling in outrage and the other in glee. It was the game itself. The day. The last play.
So don't tell me the Rivalry is dying. I'm tired of hearing "it just won't be the same". Those kinds of things are determined on the field, in the stadium, in the crowd. Then, with game over flashing in our eyes, if you feel so inclined, bring in the coroner and the M.E.s, give in to your urge to head-wag and hand-wring. But don't be too surprised when the dust has cleared that though wounded, Concorde stands up and says "I'm not quite dead, sir."
Thursday, September 1, 2011
Mentality of a Sports Fan
Its Thursday, September 1st. I'm at work. I specially mention this because obviously, if I'm at work and I'm writing this, it must be work related, because only slackers do other things when there's work to do at work. But once the work at work is done, and I start getting paid to stare at a screen, I start to look for sources of internet entertainment. The first is my email. The second is Facebook. The third is an exhaustive search of every sports journalists' dead-horse-beating opinion article, thrice-rehashed quote from the coach or a player, and pointless reexamination of the offensive and defensive match-ups for every team on the schedule for the rest of the season.
And I eat it up.
I know the player's weights, heights, years, numbers, and often individual plays they made last year. I spent an indecently mispreportionate period of time carefully putting them all in their two-deep roster on my game console. I can rattle off the schedule by opponent and date (even if its just 'TBA'). I spend time watching old games by current coaches and former players and similar situations to get some idea of how it might run, what plays will be played. It all takes a pretty large amount of time I could have spent writing ten novels and a thousand blogs.
How did it get this way?
I didn't grow up a sports fan. Playing them was fun, when I wasn't disheartened by my lack of coordination, but the fan-ship did not set sail until I became a college student. All of a sudden, I had a Team. I had someone to root for. I didn't understand many of the rules of the sport, besides a lot of hitting and basics of throwing and catching, but I knew that when My Team knuckled down and fought, and struggling, snatched victory from the jaws of the foe and sent 65,000 roaring to their feet, that I was up and roaring with them.
This is why I stick to singing base on Sunday mornings.
It took longer for me then some, but sports drew me in. Men, especially, are drawn to sports. Its the permeating existence of competition, the adrenaline-inducing rush brought on by two forces colliding, never wholly certain of the outcome, and then throwing in with one side, coming to the point where they are YOUR Team, where you throw in your heart and soul to their side, where you start using esoteric terms like "faith" and "belief" in reference to comebacks and scoreboards. You refuse to believe that the Team can't still win. You even refuse to believe it after they've already lost.
Victory, especially a close one, is a rush; possibly causing week-long, completely drug-free euphoria. Defeat, once finally admitted, causes fundamental, illogical, near-irreversible angst and depression. The only thing that cures it is the next game, the next victory, and those with grit sometimes can wait it out when its a long time in coming. To others, enough of these defeats and they become disenchanted, distance themselves, and choose to ignore their team when it does not do well. Its a very understandable reaction. People learn to shut out pain, and pain is deeper when caused by things that you cherish. This is what we call a fair-weather fan.
Those people suck.
Understandable, yes. Condonable, no way.
This coming weekend heralds the start of another season. TVs are being purchased. Cable contacts are being signed. The smell of barbecue and grass; the thrum of people moving, watching, debating; stands made of wood, metal, and plastic, and whatever other uncomfortable materials that can be found; and the aching need for struggle and vindication are all here. All that's missing is the main event.
Bring on the dead-horse-beating, the reexamination, and the rehashed quotes, because its all that there is to be had. Otherwise, I'm just left with the Wait.
Tuesday, August 16, 2011
An Intro
The purpose of this blog is to get things going.
On the one hand, its a place I can put up talks and thoughts people have asked me for. But mostly, it'll serve at the catalyst for my writing.
Sometimes, writing is a lot like a starting a fire.
Fires need fuel: some quick to take flame, others to burn longer. Fires need space, oxygen to grow, and division from where the fire should be and should not be. All this preparation happens before fire can take place, a gathering stage.
In writing, this is mostly done by thinking while the rest of life is going. The components for burnable fuel are experiences, dreams, and desires we gain and shape as we live. The oxygen and space is the time we set aside to actually write.
But to begin an actual fire, usually a fire starter is need-- sparks, from a stick and bow, flint and steel, a match, a lighter, a magnifying glass and a good ray of sun. Or in my case, a pair of glasses and a ray of sun.
If the fire is the real writing, then the "fire starters" are the small, awkward, but shining bits of thoughts written that get the whole thing burning. That is what this blog is for. To smack words together, grinding them down, focusing them, until the result is a flame for my work.
So don't expect much. Its the ugly part of the ugly part. But by putting it in public forum, it forces me to treat it seriously, to commit myself to the work, and by extension, to the writing it inspires.
Plus, its fun this way. And in the end, that's really all I need.
On the one hand, its a place I can put up talks and thoughts people have asked me for. But mostly, it'll serve at the catalyst for my writing.
Sometimes, writing is a lot like a starting a fire.
Fires need fuel: some quick to take flame, others to burn longer. Fires need space, oxygen to grow, and division from where the fire should be and should not be. All this preparation happens before fire can take place, a gathering stage.
In writing, this is mostly done by thinking while the rest of life is going. The components for burnable fuel are experiences, dreams, and desires we gain and shape as we live. The oxygen and space is the time we set aside to actually write.
But to begin an actual fire, usually a fire starter is need-- sparks, from a stick and bow, flint and steel, a match, a lighter, a magnifying glass and a good ray of sun. Or in my case, a pair of glasses and a ray of sun.
If the fire is the real writing, then the "fire starters" are the small, awkward, but shining bits of thoughts written that get the whole thing burning. That is what this blog is for. To smack words together, grinding them down, focusing them, until the result is a flame for my work.
So don't expect much. Its the ugly part of the ugly part. But by putting it in public forum, it forces me to treat it seriously, to commit myself to the work, and by extension, to the writing it inspires.
Plus, its fun this way. And in the end, that's really all I need.
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