3-25-2011 - Sport Reactions

TOTD: I realized last night that this is very telling: What is your reaction to witnessing a team you're rooting for get destroyed?

Context: Last night I was over at my brother's apartment with my wife Sydney. We were there to watch college basketball. BYU vs. a team they eventually lost to. From what I learned in my crash-course study of BYU basketball yesterday before the game, this was the closest they've gotten to a championship in a long time (obviously I don't really watch a lot of sports beyond just the highlight reel).

So I studied about this Mormon dream-team and learned about a guy named Jimmer Frederette. I watched highlight after highlight of this guy come through for his team in amazing ways. It literally started to bring a tear to my eye. Which, actually if you know me isn't all that uncommon.

So we got to my brother's apartment at about halftime and saw the score: 36 to 36. My brother explained to me that Jimmer wasn't "on," and when the game started back up I saw that it was true.

When the final few minutes of the game began to wind down and the score was still so close, something very intriguing began to unfold. Not on the game, but within the 3 of us there watching it. As the game progressed, our reactions to BYU not performing well began to sound VERY familiar:

My brother's response was to say something along the lines of, "it's over, they lost" when BYU clearly had enough time and the ability to stage a comeback, if only their hearts could get behind it.

Sydney had to literally get up and walk away because, she said, it was too painful to stay and watch them do so bad.

And finally, I for the last few minutes of the game could NOT get my head around why BYU was not rebounding a SINGLE SHOT!!! I was very impatient with their seeming inability to perform in the way that I thought would help them win. Or at the very least help them to not look as terrible while losing.

What I learned: Each of our responses to witnessing this team we wanted to win get demolished were the exact same responses I've seen us have in trials.

My brother tends to dwell on worst case scenarios when confronted with problems, Sydney tends to fight all that she can bear and then leaves and tries to flee the problem when she feels that she can bear no more, and I definitely get impatient and not understanding of others circumstances when things aren't going as planned.

My learning continued in conversations I had with my trusted friends Wesley and Jimmy today. Their experiences seemed to parallel and evidence my claim that the way we react to watching a sports team we are rooting for get demolished is the same as our reactions to trials in the weakest sense.

What do you think?

Does this work in your case as well?

Give it some thought, and let me know what you think.

Thanks for reading!

Moving to a real blog

So, I like to be exact in my speaking and writing. Which tends to cause confusion if I don't have a clearly outlined thought process...But here we go anyway:


I figured I better make Thought of the Day a blog. The reason being is that every time I send out a TOTD (see description to learn more about what that entails) I learn some amazing things. That was the original purpose behind the whole thing. I learned on my mission and on many other occasions that understanding is compounded when it's discussed with trusted people. So I wanted to get as much understanding as possible. But I instantly felt selfish with all of this new-found knowledge. So I planned to put those understandings on Facebook under the group alias 'Thought of the Day,' but only 12 people have joined so far... So that doesn't seem to be a platform that will do these amazing understandings any justice. For now.

So I turn to you blogger. I will post here the new learnings after each TOTD, and of course I will also paste them to the group on Facebook. And soon, maybe, more people will get involved in the discussion.

For now, I will be consistent in doing these things, and hopefully in time compile somewhat of a database of thoughts, discussion, learning and understanding.

Thank you for reading.