Weekends like this may be why I enjoyed being a sportswriter more than being a fan.
As a sportswriter, I loved going to the games and looking for the good story - why a game was won or lost, that decision or action that might have played a major role in the outcome that perhaps wasn't obvious to someone just watching the game, the importance of a play or a decision not just in that game but perhaps on the season or program overall.
Every game has subplots - key match-ups between individual players, the chess match between offensive and defensive coordinators. One of my favorite stories remains from the first Southeastern Conference Championship game, between Alabama and Florida at Legion Field in 1992. The first half, Florida was having great success with this little inside shovel pass until - according to then-Alabama defensive coordinator Bill Oliver - Tide defensive back Sam Shade actually blew his assignment but wound up quite by accident in the right place to stop the play. Florida's Steve Spurrier didn't go back to that play because, Oliver thought, Spurrier was convinced Oliver had adjusted when in fact Shade's play was an accident.
On such moments and sometimes accidents are championships often won or lost. That was what I tried to bring to sports writing - things that you couldn't get just by watching the game.
But I'm out of the business now. I'm re-learning how to be a fan, to care about the outcome of the game more than how the outcome came about.
So yes, I have managed to care again about how Georgia does in football. I am, after all, a Georgia graduate (even though I've now lived more of my life in the state of Alabama). Not that I ever thought this year's Bulldog team was up to the level of an Alabama - certainly defensively - but I believed the offense was good enough to score on anybody.
And then came Saturday against South Carolina.
It was a game that reminded me of one of the classic Lewis Grizzard columns of all time, a column that showed just how much influence and popularity Grizzard had in Georgia and the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
Grizzard loved Georgia football, and after one particularly galling loss to Georgia Tech, Grizzard's column was one sentence: "I don't want to talk about it." And the rest of the left hand side of the page, which Grizzard's column was supposed to fill with prose, was left blank. In the business, we'd call this "creative use of white space."
That's how I feel about the Georgia-South Carolina game this weekend.
It's also how I feel about the Atlanta Braves' one-game playoff with the Cardinals. My best friend in high school was Mitch, and we loved baseball. We used to go down and sit in the cheap seats in the outfield, and even though the Braves were terrible back in those days (the days when all Atlanta sports teams were so bad the city was nicknamed "Loserville"), year after year we had hope.
It was a hope that was finally driven out of me. Even in the decade of the 90s when Atlanta had one of the best regular-season teams in baseball, I refused to get back on the Braves' bandwagon.
Well, not entirely. Come playoff time I'd find myself daring to hope and, other than one year when the Braves managed to win the World Series, year after year I'd be disappointed.
Somehow I thought this year might be different. Maybe it's because it was Chipper Jones' last year. Maybe because .... I don't know, maybe because I'm just a sucker who hasn't shaken my childhood allegiances as much as I'd like to think I have.
It didn't help that Mitch kept texting me during the game. I wasn't watching; I was at a company-sponsored function. I kept trying to text Mitch back to quit texting me, but he kept texting me (it's OK). But do you know how frustrating it is to get cryptic text messages and have no idea what's going on, other than it's not good for your team?
I finally saw the "infield fly'' controversy, but I still haven't seen Chipper's throwing error, and have refused to watch his last at-bat.
The only good thing is that so much of my family lives in St. Louis and we're Cardinals' fans, so there is that.
However, later that night I turn on to watch the Rangers - who I cheer for because my buddy Shayne is on the coaching staff - lose 5-1. Bottom of the ninth, bases loaded, two outs, and the season ends on a pop up to the outfield. Two straight years going to the World Series (Shayne wasn't on the staff the last two years), and I was sure my buddy would get to enjoy a deep run into the playoffs this year.
These are the kind of emotional letdowns that I didn't suffer as a sportswriter. I covered games and certainly for the sake of the story I was writing there were times I wanted the team I was covering to win (it's always more fun to write a "team wins championship'' story than a "team blows championship'' story). The standing joke among beat writers is that during the NCAA Tournament, all sportswriters become fans of the team they are covering because we all wanted to go as far into the tournament as we could.
People accused me of being 'for' one team - like Alabama, the team I was assigned as the beat writer for 15 years - but the truth is, while I became close to individuals who played or coaches and worked at Alabama, I was never a fan of "Alabama."
As Jerry Seinfeld so aptly put it, fans are really fans of laundry. Tide fans, for example, love the uniform and, truthfully, whoever is wearing the uniform matters to them only because they are wearing the right laundry. Players and coaches come and go, but the laundry remains. ("Tide fans love laundry" - I had to laugh at that one).
The essence of being a fan means you come to support laundry. If you don't like that, you can say fans support the team, the school, the program, and that's appropriate. You are a fan of the team that represents your city or state or country (in the case of the Olympics or World Cup or international competition). Or maybe, as a kid, you just 'decide' you like a team for whatever reason. When I was a kid, I loved the Green Bay Packers, a fandom that started before Atlanta got the Falcons; I have a brother-in-law who did not grow up in Minnesota and as far as I know has never even been to Minnesota, but long ago he decided he was a Vikings fan.
But really, we're cheering for laundry, or colors, or an idea. Not people.
As a sportswriter, I found myself pulling for people, and that loyalty transferred as players and coaches and administrators moved on. It's one reason I like Clemson now - I've known and liked Dabo Swinney since he was a walk-on at Alabama way back in the day. It's a reason I hope Akron does well, because I've always enjoyed being around the Bowden family and I'm happy to see Terry Bowden back at the Division I level.
But now that I'm not in the business anymore, I find myself going back to being a fan - Georgia, the Braves, the Falcons, and, yes, Alabama because a lot of my personal history is tied up in that school (although I like Auburn, too, for the same reason; people forget I was an Auburn beat writer before I moved to cover that school in Tuscaloosa, and still enjoy a good relationship with Pat Dye and Terry Bowden and even Tommy Tuberville. When MG and I were dating, I was covering Auburn and she went with me to so many games, sitting in the stands while I sat in the press box. Auburn fans in those sections were incredibly nice and 'adopted' her, looking out for her while I worked. So Auburn remains special to me).
And being a fan is tough. I'd forgotten how tough until this weekend.
But ... How 'bout them Falcons?
No comments:
Post a Comment