Being a Fanatic

Both the men’s and women’s basketball teams are off to great starts, just as the soccer team completed an Elite Eight season. I am happy to reminded of why I am a sports fanatic . . .

Sunday morning kneeling at the altar rail as the communion assembly line does its thing is not a great place to be having less-than-holy thoughts. Up past midnight the night before, up at six this morning, I could think of dozens of things I’d rather be doing than being in church. The communion procession approached from my right–“The body of Christ, the body of Christ, the body of Christ . . .” I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t have to be, I thought. I am so unprepared for the discussion group I’m leading after church. I hope someone has something interesting to say, because I sure as hell don’t. My buddy Bruce, one of the morning’s chalice bearers along with his wife Cathi, approached from the right with cup in hand. “The blood of Christ, the blood of Christ, the blood of Christ . . .” I looked up as Bruce lowered the cup to me. “Go Friars!”

Bruce gets it. Eucharist celebrations come and go—I could celebrate every day if I wanted to (I don’t). But the Providence Friars basketball team winning the Big East Tournament title? That happens once every twenty years. Literally. On a March Saturday in 1994, I received the call we had been hoping and praying I would receive—the offer of a tenure-track teaching position in the philosophy department at Providence College. It was the ticket for my family of misplaced Northerners out of Memphis, the South, and the little college that was my first teaching job out of graduate school. Since it was March, it was also March Madness—the best sports month of the year. The final game of the Big East tournament was on—underdog Providence College playing the evil and strongly favored Georgetown Hoyas. A few minutes later Jeanne returned from grocery shopping—“Come watch your new basketball team on TV!” I yelled out the door toward the driveway. The Friars pulled off the big upset—their only Big East tournament championship in the thirty-five year history of the Big East conference. Until last Saturday, that is. Up well past midnight watching their victory, up early to read as many articles about it on the Internet as I could find—no wonder I was bleary-eyed at the altar rail.

I am a sports fan in the true sense of the word—a “fanatic.” This is not easily accounted for. I am not an athlete—the only sports I ever have been decent at are skiing and tennis. I grew up in northern New England, hundreds of miles from any sports beyond high school. But I was a fan of all sports from an early age, a fanaticism that has distilled, as an adult, to the Boston Red Sox and the Providence Friars. My passion for college basketball in general, and the Friars in particular, surprised my students and colleagues when I first arrived on campus, although it should not have surprised my colleagues. During a lunch with the philosophy faculty that was part of my on-campus interview in February 1994, someone asked “why do you want to teach at Providence College?’ The honest answer was that I wanted a tenure track job somewhere other than Tennessee. I think the continuation of my marriage depended on it. The answer I actually gave included some making some noise about wanting to teach at a place that takes philosophy seriously, focuses on the history of philosophy, and so on. On a more personal level, I continued, my wife and I badly want to return to our native Northeast (she’s from Brooklyn, I’m from Vermont). I concluded my response by mentioning that Division One basketball was also a very attractive feature of working at Providence College. There were a few snickers and smiles—but I wasn’t kidding.

I’m a different person entirely at a basketball game. It’s a great place for my inner beast to come out—even introverts have one of those—in ways that sometimes even I am surprised by. Once during our second year at Providence, when my season tickets were still in an upper deck nosebleed section, we were given two seats on the court by the Admissions Director Jeanne worked for. It was not a pretty game—we were being beaten by Iona. Providence should never be beaten by Iona, so obviously it was the referees’ fault. After a particularly horrendous call, one of the zebras went trotting by our seats, just a few feet away, causing me to scream in his direction, along with several thousand other fans, just what was on my mind. A few seconds later I asked Jeanne “Did I just call the ref a fucking asshole?” “Yes you did,” she replied. That’s why I love basketball games—they provide the opportunity for unfiltered expression of what I really am feeling and thinking. Later in the game I looked up toward our usual seats where my son Justin was sitting. As he screamed with a beet-red face and veins popping out of his neck, I wondered “Why is he getting so upset? It’s just a game. Where does he get that from?”

I have had two season tickets in Section 104 for the past nineteen years. Section 104 is a family section—if your family has a “Sons of Anarchy” disposition. Once several years ago a young man a couple of rows in front of me, the son of one of the season ticket holders, was telling a story to a friend during a timeout with all the energy, volume, and foul language that a half-inebriated twenty-something male can muster. “HE SAID BLAH BLAH BLAH SO I SAID GO F%&K YOURSELF! THEN HE SAID BLAH BLAH BLAH SO I SAID  GO F%&K YOURSELF!!” After a few more GFYs, a guy in the front row of the section turned around and yelled “Hey! Knock it off! I’ve got my wife with me!” The young guy apologized—“sorry, man”—but front row guy wouldn’t let it go and kept complaining. Before long, GFY guy goes “I SAID I WAS SORRY!! GO F%&K YOURSELF!!” I love Section 104.

I knew something special was up two weeks ago, at the final home game of the season. Our opponent, as it turns out, was my alma mater Marquette Warriors who had defeated us nine straight times over the past few years. It was Senior Night, with a pre-game ceremony honoring the five seniors on what has

turned out to be my favorite Friars team of the nineteen I have followed since showing up in Providence. During the first timeout, my seat was chosen, out of 11,000 plus fans, as the “lucky seat” of the night. I was interviewed briefly, was on the Jumbotron for half a minute, and got a signed basketball. We then proceeded to win a double-overtime game that I pronounced to be the best basketball game I had ever seen. And it was. Until last Saturday night. We were, against all expectations and predictions, playing in the championship game of the Big East tournament for the first time in twenty years. We were playing Creighton University, the twelfth-ranked team in the country who had beaten the crap out of us by fifteen points just a week earlier. But it was one of those magical nights that happens every once in a while in college basketball. The Friars flawlessly executed a brilliant game plan concocted by the coaching staff, led the whole way, and won the championship. As they celebrated and cut down the Madison Square Garden nets in front of a national television audience, I had tears in my eyes.

Why am I a fanatic? There are all sorts of reasons a basketball obsessed academic might come up with. College basketball at its best is teamwork, dedication, solidarity, hope, and dreams on display. I have a colleague who teaches a “Philosophy of Sport” course, although I’ve never seen him at a game. I could teach that course. But for me this is personal. I suspect that my youngest son’s top five memories of his childhood involve being at a basketball game with me. I organize my memories of the past two decades by reference to memorable games and teams. There’s something excitingly visceral and primal about being in a crowd of several thousand cheering so loudly that the building vibrates. But bottom line I love being a fan because it reminds me that I’m more than a brain, more than the sum total of the roles I play, even though I love every one of them. Being a fan reminds me that there is still a kid inside who can get inexplicably excited, to the point of hyperventilation and tears, over something that makes no sense other than that I love it. Forty years from now, when I have just turned 100 in a nursing home, I will probably die of a heart attack as the Friars win their first national championship with a buzzer beating three-pointer. I’m good with that.