Do Sports Matter?

About 10 years ago, my best friend John and I used to go out and have a beer and wonder, why do we care so much about sports?

I’m not talking about the sports you play, I’m talking about the sports that you watch other people play, people who are really, really good.

Whether it’s professional or college sports (and let’s face it, when it comes to college football and basketball, it’s basically semi-pro), I'm a fan. I care. I watch. I read. And so does my friend. Hours and hours and hours, every week, every month, every year.

This is time we could be using to read a book, call a friend, play with our kids, work on our finances…whatever.

So, the question we pondered was, why do we do this? Why do some people love sports, many of them passionately, and others couldn’t give a crap? Is there a point? Is it just an escape? Is it a massive waste of time? Or is it something that actually makes our lives better?

For me, it goes way back. Way, way back. Picture this: I’m seven years old, sitting on a pillow in my parent’s living room. I’m listening on my dad’s combination radio/record player to the very first Seattle Mariners game in franchise history (1977). A young, excitable man named Dave Niehaus (RIP) is calling the game. And I was hooked.

Or maybe I was already hooked. The year before (1976), my dad took me to Dodger Stadium in Los Angeles. I still remember that game. The Dodgers played the Astros, and they won (7-3, or something close to that).

I believe Doug Rau pitched for the Dodgers. I’m pretty sure I bought my first pack of baseball cards at that game (after years of collecting, I still have about 3,000 today, along with another 600 or so of my dad’s from his childhood).

You see, my father grew up in LA as a fan of the Dodgers (he snuck into the very first game, at the Los Angeles Coliseum). So, even though I lived in Seattle, I became a huge Dodgers fan. I mean, the kind of fan who would call the local sports hotline (imagine, no Internet!) each night to see if the Dodgers had won. Who used to devour the sports page every morning, reading the game description and the box score.

Heck, one year when I was about 12, I cut out the box score and the game description from EVERY GAME the Dodgers played and pasted it in a notebook. (Ten years later, this story would win me a Think Blue award and a chance to be a Sportswriter for a Day at Dodger Stadium. But that’s another story.)

I guess some of this was an attempt to be close to my father. What 7-year-old boy doesn’t idolize his father, likes what he likes, wants to do things with him? My dad and I used to work in our (half-excavated) basement on Saturday afternoons and listen to Washington Huskies football. The names alone were fascinating: Toussaint Tyler, Warren Moon, Joe Steele…

When I was eight, we attended my first Husky game in person. It poured rain, the Huskies beat the UCLA Bruins, and I was hooked. To this day I still am passionate about Huskies football. It’s a big part of my life every fall. John and I can talk for hours about the players, the games, the coaches, everything.

And it all goes back to my Dad, and being seven years old, listening to the radio in that dank basement and being happy. I'm sure John (and a million other men out there) have similar fond memories.

Fast forward a few years, to June 1979. The Seattle SuperSonics are about to clinch their first NBA championship—indeed, the first major pro-sports championship in the city’s history. I am standing next to my father, watching the seconds tick away. It’s over! The Sonics win it!

Impulsively, my Dad and I turn to each other and hug. I think that’s probably one of only a handful of hugs I shared with my Dad in my entire life.

He’s been dead almost 15 years now, but I still remember that hug, and how we went to Baskin-Robbins (31 Flavors!) for ice cream after the game and watched the cars fill up Broadway with people honking and screaming to celebrate a wonderful moment in the city’s history. I’ll have that vivid memory until the day I die.

As I said, my Dad is gone now. But he lives on through me, as I raise my son and follow the sports teams that we followed. Every time I watch or listen to Husky game, it’s a tribute to him.

People constantly ask me, “Why do you root for UW over Stanford, where you went to school?” I tell them the story about my Dad, about being 7 years old, and I think they get it. It makes perfect sense to me.

Aside: My 13-year-old son Nick couldn’t give a fig about watching or following sports, either on TV, the radio, or in person. This is very disappointing to me. I’ve taken him to games, watched sports with him, and God knows I’ve talked about sports enough with him (sports radio is always on in the car—he turns it down until it is inaudible).

Nothing works. And this is a kid who has played youth soccer, baseball, and basketball. He currently loves Ultimate Frisbee (they have a whole league in his school district). He has even told me that it’s stupid to waste time watching sports.

And even though I swear he’s got to be the mailman’s kid (after all, we named him after my father—this doesn’t make any sense!)…maybe he’s right. Maybe it is just a waste of time—I could be out taking him to the park, or doing volunteer work, or get some exercise…lots of things.

But consider this: My daughter Kayla grew up loving sports, mostly as a player (she does follow women’s basketball—go Storm!). She played soccer and basketball at a high level in her youth.

Kayla thought she was pretty hot, until in her sophomore year her new coach cut her from the high school varsity. The coach could tell that Kayla was coasting on her talent; she wasn’t playing hard or caring that much. It lit a fire under my daughter. She worked her butt off, got back on the varsity, and earned a starting spot.

Two years later, she led her high school team to their first state berth in school history, and a fourth-place finish at the Tacoma Dome. She made the all-tournament team. She earned a partial scholarship to play basketball in college.

But beyond that: She learned a ton about teamwork, giving it your all, sucking it up when you’re tired and frustrated and just want to go home and take a nap. Her coach was always on her, pushing her amd making her a far better person (and player) than she ever would have been on her own.

She’s still close to that coach, who has become a professional mentor to her (she served as an intern at Boeing last summer, where her old coach works). Sports has made a huge difference in my daughter’s life, for the better. And I am so proud of her.

And one more thing: Whenever I meet someone (usually a man) and find out they are a sports fan, we instantly have something to talk about. I can walk into any bar in the world and talk sports with most of the guys in there.

It doesn’t matter if they are a fan of soccer or basketball, baseball or football. If they are super-conservative and I’m super-liberal, if they are rich or poor, black or white, American or foreign, Christian or Muslim, jerk or nice guy. We have a lingua franca that allows us to bond, to communicate. We both care about the same thing and can talk about it knowledgeably. And it gives me comfort, and hope for the world.

Being a sports fan may not matter much in the larger scheme of things, but it’s one of the ways I get through life, looking forward to that Saturday football game or that Mariners-Yankees contest I have tickets for next week.

It fills a part of me, gives me an eternal connection to my father, it is something my friends and I can get together to watch and share, something that gives me pleasure and joy. And ultimately, I think it’s worth every minute.