Being a sports fan makes me a bit of social pariah in some circles, but there are some redeeming qualities to the habit. It feels a little funny defending an avocation that is omnipresent and full of obvious flaws, but here goes...
First, being a sports fan is a bit of a rite of passage. The first time I went to a professional, excuse me college, football game, I went with John Swanson, Steve Male and Dad. I don't remember much about the game, but I do remember them sneaking me into the Rathskeller after the game. I carved a message not fit for a family blog into the table with my pocket knife. I rode home with John Swanson who drove very fast! I was one of the boys.
Lifelong sports team allegiances are formed some time between 6th and 9th grade. Unfortunately for me, we lived in Philadelphia during those years. Cheering for Philadelphia's professional sports teams has been a life long chore. With the sole exception of a somewhat unsatisfying NBA championship and this year's Phillies squad, being a Philly fan has been an exercise in futility. Until this year, more on that later.
Now, I know I need to address some of the obvious pratfalls of professional sports. The most glaring and depressing is the way that professional sports teams hold local and state governments hostage to leverage public resources for private sports stadiums. There really is no defense available for this practice. The most egregious and recent example of this kind of bullshit is the way that the New York Yankees are working over New York to support the building of a new billion dollar plus stadium.
The team just went looking for another couple hundred million in tax exempt bonds and they will likely succeed. Right thinking politicians dive for cover, quaver or surrender when sports franchises come calling because it goes against every fiber in a politician's body to tell an organization that has a whole section of the newspaper as well as multiple television and radio channels dedicated to it to get lost. Regularly turning out tens of thousands of paying customers is also a little intimidating to politicians that regularly have to work hard to turn out a couple of hundred people for free event in a church basement.
Count that as a mea culpa.
For the record, I also detest the name of the football team from Washington DC, or more correctly now, Landover, MD. Using a racist moniker as a team name is simply unconscionable. I'm not sure how they continue to get away with it. It's one of those things that people will look back on and cringe, like we do now about people performing in blackface. The basketball franchise in DC wised up a decade or two ago about how dumb it was to call their team the Washington Bullets.
The most specious argument that people often use to attack professional sports involves profession athletes' salaries. I hate it when I hear people complaining about professional athletes' salaries. It doesn't feel like a coincidence to me that most of the professional athletes whose salaries people complain about are black or brown. CEO compensation is getting an increasing amount of attention, but it is rarely discussed in the same derisive way that people talk about athletes' salaries.
In blatant attempt to hang on to whatever audience I have left, I'll skip the ten paragraph explanation of median athlete salaries, average career span, percentage of athletes who fall into poverty after their playing days are over, etc... Suffice it to say that if it makes sense to pay Angelina Jolie 20 million for each film she is in, I've got no problem with Brian Westbrook making 4 million dollars a year.
That brings me to the reason I'm writing. No Philadelphia team has held me in its thrall more than the Philadelphia Eagles. I've suffered through roughly 30 years of cheering for this team. I was a fan when Ron Jaworski, the Polish Rifle, was the quarterback. I've watched improbable victories happen as if the gods themselves reached down from the sky to alter the course of human events. But, more often, I've seen the team snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.
The Eagles and Eagles fans in particular have bad reputations. One of my favorite players as a kid was the Eagles hard hitting safety Andre Waters. His nickname: Dirty Waters. Eagles fans are famous for booing and throwing battery encrusted snow balls at Santa Claus. Old, now blown up, Veterans Stadium (how do you get away with blowing up Veterans Stadium in favor of Lincoln "Subprime" Financial Field?) had the distinction of being the only sports stadium in the country with its own police precinct, complete with cells.
This year was the year that the window for winning a championship for this iteration of the Eagles was to have closed. They have had an amazing run over the last decade, but they have never one the last, big game. As recently as December, there was open talk in Philly about trading our fantastically talented and charismatic quarterback, Donovan McNabb (Philly fans booed when the team selected him in the draft and the relationship has never really been repaired, which seems oddly appropriate).
Improbably, the Eagles have mounted a late season run of luck and skill that has them poised to go to the Super Bowl if they win this Sunday. I feel a little guilty about how happy and excited I am about this. It'll cost me a couple of hours and suffering through a hundred or so ads for cars I'll never buy, to watch the game, but that's about it. And if you want a taste of a perfect pop song and some early 80s video work that perfectly captures exactly what I'm thinking about right now, go find the Jam's song That's Entertainment on YouTube, because I can't figure out how to embed the link.
Sports have launched millions of conversations between strangers. I had a mini debate about the Eagles collapse in the 1980 Super Bowl in a coffee shop this week. Believe it or not the guy thought the Eagles had won. At the end of the day, that's why sports feels important to me. It creates bonds between strangers that make us less like strangers to each other.
Thanks for hanging with me until the end of this screed. I've gotta go to bed. I love ya.
Marsh
