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!