By Cyote Williams | Times Vedette
I’ve written about many different things sports can be in this column in many different ways. One thing I haven’t written much about, though, is winning and losing. If you currently have, or had, children in sports, you probably told them, “Sports aren’t just about winning” at one time or another, whether it be to console them after a loss or relax them after some frustrations. Well, if they are not about winning, then what are they about?
The thing is, sports are about winning and losing. Athletes play to win the game, not to lose it. Winning feels great. Losing feels awful. And who wants to feel awful? When you watch your favorite team win, it can boost your mood. When you watch your team lose, like how I just watched the Green Bay Packers get completely embarrassed on Thursday Night Football, it can tarnish your mood. Anyone who says winning and losing don’t matter is lying, or at least not telling the full truth. Those things do matter, but they are not the entire reason we play or watch sports.
Look no further than recreational sports once you reach adulthood. For roughly 95% of us, the last “meaningful” sporting games we played were in high school. There are no real stakes involved in recreation and coed sports, but they offer something different like access to a community, some exercise and many memories. I look forward to playing pick-up basketball games with my longtime friends. We get to catch up, joke around, sometimes argue, and play some basketball. I’ve made more new friends than I could have possibly imagined by playing in a coed rec soccer league the past four years. Grabbing Mexican food and some margaritas at the end of each season feels better than any win we had during the season.
One thing many Americans are asked when they meet people overseas is if our cheerleaders are real. They also want to know what American football is like. Meanwhile, many countries have now adopted baseball and basketball as major national sports.
Some foreigners say the United States has no culture. I say you need only look at our professional sports teams. Culture, tradition and rivalries are the result of the passion that comes from fans of teams in the NFL, MLB and NBA, as well as local high schools.
Above all else, sports are an escape from daily life. They help us forget about our problems, trials and tribulations. When I’ve had a bad day, I can go shoot hoops for a couple hours or hit some shots (soccer ones, of course). I can also turn on the TV and watch my favorite team. Sometimes, that’s a good thing. Sometimes, that’s a bad thing.
For others, sports provide an even bigger escape. Just look at the tradition started by the Iowa Hawkeyes and their fans in waving to young patients in the nearby children’s hospital. How many kids in the Make A Wish program have chosen to meet their favorite players over the years? These athletes inspire countless numbers of people to make efforts to pull their entire family out of poverty just by playing a game.
Sports make us laugh, cheer, cry, boo and everything in between. They involve community, respect, tradition, culture and competition — all wrapped in one. Sometimes, they play out like a fairytale. Sometimes, they play out like a nightmare. Yes, they are about winning and losing, but they have always been — and always will be — about much more than that, too.
Reach out with comments, complaints, story ideas and more to cyote@dmcityview.com.