Corvallis isn't very big, and so it didn't take long for us to find a sleepy little row of college-y establishments on the north edge of campus. I parked the car and we walked half a block to a little tavern right across from the university.
"A typical college dive," I told Red, pleased at our find. It was the kind of place that on a Friday night was probably jammed with noisy drunk kids, but on a hot Sunday summer afternoon had but a smattering of folks of various ages escaping from the heat to drink pints of beer and eat burgers, which is exactly what we intended to do.
Red asked for a gluten-free beer, and I for "the darkest thing you have," as is both our custom. As we drank in the coolness of the tavern, under a (now outdated) banner depicting the Pac-10 team mascots sharing beers with each other, we half-watched the big screen television over the bar, where a soccer match had just ended. As we learned from our smartphones, Brazil had just won the Confederations Cup, and the joyful green-and-gold-clad team members were hoisting the trophy, passing it around to each other in front of their cheering home-country fans.
Red is a half-generation younger than I am, and like many kids in the Eighties she grew up playing competitive soccer through her teenage years. She's a fan of the Portland Timbers, whose banner was hanging over the bar next to the television.
Watching the Brazilians celebrate gave me a chance to wax about my opinions on professional sports. I told Red that sports was one of the few things I actually enjoyed watching on television anymore.
"I like it because it's real," I explained. "The players are really playing the game, and they really want to win," I said. "I even like watching sports commentary on ESPN, because at least they are discussing real things that actually happened, and not billowing out some fog of lies."
I had once had favorite teams in all the sports I watched, as most folks do, and staked my happiness on whether they won or lost. But that had long since faded away in me, partly because my teams had since won championships and there was nowhere to go from there but down, as I saw it. It would never be as good as that first time, and I didn't care to chase a feeling that could never be duplicated, all the while suffering the heartbreak of watching my teams fall short of being number one, which is inevitably how team sports must work.
To me, caring so much about a particular team, especially on the professional level, was the quintessential example of a granfalloon, to use a famous term coined by Vonnegut. It was a fun thing to do, so long as you didn't take it too seriously.
I still rooted casually for the Longhorns whenever I saw them on television, but it was mostly out of pleasant solidarity with the various players I once taught and went to school with, and the programs that continue that legacy. At UT, there was a tacit expectation that you were supposed to strive to be the best at anything you did, and I very much loved being in such an environment that somehow gave me permission to challenge myself in that way.
But I didn't have a favorite NFL or Major League Baseball team, at least not as I once did. I root for the Colorado teams when I'm there, so I can discuss games with my family, and I genuinely pulled for the Giants in the last World Series when I visited my Bay Area friends. But mostly now I root for a good well-contested game, with excellent and passionate play by both sides. This has made watching sports a much nicer experience for me.
I particular enjoy watching championship-level play, I said, no matter what the sport. "To be able to watch the people who are the best in the world at what they do, and who know they are the best, doing what matters to them, with the eyes of the world on them and knowing that so many people care about the outcome---that to me is a great privilege, even if I do it remotely through the television."
In most cases I can be satisfied with whoever wins such championship contests, although I usually adopt a side during the game. I selfishly pull for everyone to play their best, so I can be inspired by it. I am completely capable of switching sides during the game, especially to cheer on the team or player who is striving to rally to victory, if that is the case. For example during this year's Super Bowl I seemed to be the last person in the little bar in Nevada who believed the Forty-Niners could still pull it out. Never, never, never, never say die.
One the other hand, the players and the teams that put me off are the ones that, in the moment of truth, simply give up trying to win, or worse yet, play with rank dishonor.
In that last regard, I mentioned to Red my disgust at watching the final match of the last soccer World Cup in 2010. I had started the match rooting for the Netherlands against Spain, since I like Holland so much, and they were the underdogs. But the Dutch team, upon finding themselves outmatched by the Spaniards, had resorted to outright open fouls in order to slow the momentum of their opponents. It was so revolting that I almost resolved never to watch another World Cup match.
But fortunately that kind of disappointment doesn't happen very often (at least outside of international soccer). More often one gets a chance to witness true excellence, even if it is on a field of play that is ultimately arbitrary, as far as real life goes.
Not surprisingly, the athletes whom I admire most are the ones who, in their most important games and matches at the championship level, and in the instant that it counts, find a way to rise above their normal level of play.
"To be the best at what you are," I said, "means that when it really matters, in that crucial moment when it is your time to shine, you have to step forward and take it upon yourself to be twice as good as you've ever been before, and maybe five times better than anyone has a right to expect you to be."
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