If The Pass Never Comes Down
December brings with it many things. The holidays are fast approaching and we are all looking forward to taking some time off work, getting together with family, giving and receiving gifts and of course, watching some holiday football. For some football fans, December brings gathering excitement as their team prepares for a playoff run. For others, it brings the disappointment of another lost season. For the latter, the disappointment will soon be be replaced with anticipation of the draft and for an off-season where hope springs eternal.
To the devout, being a fan can lead to a turbulent emotional investment. Cheering on your team can cause incredible fits of anger, depression and happiness. It is the fastest and the most dangerous of all emotional roller coasters and no matter how much pain it continues to dish out, most riders simply hop off and get back in line.
I was not alive when the Chiefs won Super Bowl 4, but I think the closest I have ever come to experiencing what it might feel like to see that happen was during a play from the 2008 season. It is easily one of my favorite plays of all time. I am talking about the touchdown pass that Mark Bradley threw to Tyler Thigpen.I live in New York City and congregate at a bar called the Village Pour House to watch the Chiefs games with a great group of KC natives I’ve met here in the city. When that play happened, right in the middle of such a dismal season, we went absolutely crazy. Everyone in the bar was staring at us. You would have thought that the Chiefs had won the Super Bowl. We were jumping around like maniacs and this was just due to one play…in a game we lost. In a season that was lost.
Powerful stuff.
Reflecting on the way I felt that day, I’ve realized that sport gives us something we need, something ingrained in our very DNA; competition. Competition is a very natural urge for a human to have. Humans are part of nature and nature is a competition first, ask questions later kind of set up. You win, you eat. You lose, you starve. Thankfully the human race has created a society that allows even those of us who are physically weaker to survive through a number of means. Imagine if you had to fight over food with someone like Willie Roaf or Brian Waters. Forget it. You’re toast. Luckily, you don’t have to compete for food with Willie Roaf. Instead you compete for a place in line for a turn at the deli counter or, God forbid, for the last rib on an appetizer plate you are sharing with Jason Whitlock.
Another way to feed your competitive desire is sports. You might play intramural softball, darts down at the pub, or like me, a rousing game of Madden. The best among us get to compete at the very highest level against the best athletes in their field. As spectators we are transported back to the Coliseum in Rome, rabidly watching a gladiator slay a lion. Take a look at a modern day football stadium and a picture of the Coliseum and you will see that not much has changed in the way we view our sport, HD flat screen TV’s not withstanding. Whether you are cheering for the lion or the gladiator or today, the Lions or the Saints, you want your side to win.
These feelings, these emotions that make us human are what make sports such a wonderful thing to behold. When have you ever seen two dogs fighting over a bone while three other dogs sat watching them, seemingly rooting for one or the other to win? Life is hard. Being a fan is just another way for us to all get by, another opportunity for us to feel, to escape and to be human.
My favorite moment in all of football is during the long pass play. Precisely, it is the exact moment when the ball is at its highest point and is about to start falling back down to earth. Usually by this moment I have realized what is happening. A play with a low percentage for success, with the potential for high impact and high reward is happening. I’m half out of my chair; half standing up with my knees bent in anticipation of leaping with triumph. My shoulders are raised and my fists are clenched. Everything goes quiet. My eyes are fixed on the ball in the air. For an instant there is nothing else around me. I am in a vacuum. I am not happy. I am not sad. I am not afraid. I am something else entirely. I am feeling something there is no word for.
Einstein said that time is relative. There is no future and there is no past. There are theories that somewhere, in some other dimension, we are living all the moments of our lives, each instant, for eternity. If this is true then somewhere you are taking your first breath and somewhere you are attending your first day of school. If this is all true then somewhere, I’m in the Village Pour House in New York City with my friends and Mark Bradley has just thrown a pass to Tyler Thigpen. I am half out of my chair, half standing up, with my knees bent in anticipation of leaping with triumph. My shoulders are raised and my fists are clenched. Everything goes quiet. My eyes are fixed on the ball in the air. If this is true, in that moment, the pass will never come down.
And I’m okay with that.