I had to take the night off.
This last one pushed me off the proverbial cliff.
Trouble at Work? Nope. Drama with the Girlfriend? Hardly. Dog throwing up on the carpet? Please.
I feel that normally, I handle the ups and downs of life pretty well, everyone has their moments and I'm certainly no exception, but I've never claimed to be perfect, and well, for the most part I keep it together enough to make it to the next day. Life being the way it is, we look for ways to feel joy, happiness, adrenaline rushes and in a very broad sense, emotions. This basic human need to belong to something that delivers these, in my humble opinion, is what makes professional sports, and athletic competition in general, so popular.
Tonight, it didn't work in my favor.
It has been a rough season for the Utah Jazz. The business side of sports has taken away from the true greatness of competition, often times dulling the fact that we live in the absolute prime of greatness for most athletic competition, but for the Jazz, constantly a winning franchise, it felt like those times could not touch us. We had Jerry Sloan, perhaps the second most famous part of Utah, behind a two way tie for a salty lake, and polygamy, as our rock, our lighthouse in the dark, never changing, always delivering. In recent years, Deron Williams had emerged as the new hero of Energy Solutions, and everyone expected Gr8ness to establish himself as the next number in Jazz lore, next to 7, 12 and 32; and we had just rid ourselves of Boozeritis, a disease that at times appeared to make Jazz fans cheer with ferocity, only to have it disappear for 2o games a season, if not more, and had a tendency to shift our competition in the playoffs. Things were looking great.
Then the storm hit. Winds of change to be exact.
No need to go over again what has happened, or how disappointing this season has become, been there done that as they say. What situations like this bring up in ones mind is not as much what happened, but why, and to a deeper extent, why am I even a fan, and what exactly is a fan?
As a fan, you are expected to be emotional. You lay yourself on the line, cheer, invest your time and money into a team, and have the least amount of control over any of the results. Players and coaches do not understand this because, astonishingly, they have control over what happens. Can Kobe Bryant control how many shots he puts up? Okay, bad example, but the point is this, a fan has to understand that the level of caring they have for a team is different from a player. Players can't live and die with wins and losses, they have to develop consistency, and mental toughness, and be emotionally in control. Fans almost by default have to be the opposite, wild, screaming, cheering, whatever, but yet, like players, fans have to learn to see the big picture too. Coaches and players don't see it like that usually until the game is done. It is the an eternal conflict between them and us, we're solely dependent on them doing what we can't.
Sometimes, there are players that just steal a piece of us, due to either the position that they play, or the effort they bring, or the skill they demonstrate, we love 'em. Buy their jerseys. Create screen names with their numbers, even use their names for passwords. (You can't deny you've never done it. Up until this article, the password for our site fit this criteria. Good luck figuring out what it is now though, unless you know Russian. Dammit. I'm stopping now.) When those players fall short, or get traded, we feel hurt. We defend the player, argue with friends about him, or burn his jersey if they end up leaving us. It's a natural cycle, but as a fan, if your loyalty lies with the team, it stays with the team. That means when a guy doesn't perform, as a fan that wants to win, you gotta learn to cut the ties.
Now, the problem with what I just said is it only applies to true fans, the Dylan Macleods of the world, who literally live, breath, and die with every up and down a team goes through. How die-hard is Dylan? Did he take a personal day when Jerry Sloan resigned because he was so distraught? Has he single-handedly funded the expansion of Del Taco onto 4th south due to his routine of eating it after losses? Do I even have to answer my questions at this point? He will never be anything but a Mets/Jazz/Utes fan, and not by choice. Case No. 2, a Mr Justin Curtis, who wanted to get into baseball, and knew he needed a team. Only way to go. Bandwagon fans cheat themselves because they follow the winners, and never declare, kind of like dating a chick. Guys who claim happiness being single only do so because they haven't found a match, true love. Same with true fandom. Justin looked around, talked to friends, went to some ballparks, was leaning hard towards being a Mets fan, until he walked out to the field at Angels Stadium. Call it a first kiss, call in confirmation, I really don't care, but that moment locked him into the Anaheim Angels for life. Mark an 8 dude, it won't change. And yes I called them the Anaheim Angels. They play in Anaheim. There's no Los Angeles in Anaheim.
The bottom line is this. Most fans dedicate themselves to a team because they want to know what it feels like to touch greatness, to be winning, like Charlie Sheen says. Media members, Coaches, Players, GMs, Owners are typically powerful people who are used to being around greatness. When you work in a cubicle 40 hours a week trying to make sure Company A hits some absurd goal that means absolutely nothing to you, the "greatness" of what you are doing is hard to find. You learn to live for the other pieces of your life, good friends, family, children or pets, and the "Team". It is a part of life, just like eating, breathing and dying, and rightfully so. They don't get to do what they do without us, something we lose sight of, and players refuse to admit. We might lose track during a losing streak, get angry and say or do something we regret (Consider this my apology, Greg Ostertag) and can occasionally refuse to admit when someone is better (Jimmer) because our pride won't allow it, but without the passion that takes us to one side, we would never be able to push through to the other side that makes us want to be there when Player A hits the game winner. Will Rogers once said, "We can't all be heroes, because somebody has to sit on the curb and clap as they go by." because without someone there to witness it, greatness just fades away and dies.
Unless you cheer for the Cincinnati Bengals. Then you just know what it feels like to lose.
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