Mike has played a variety of sports virtually all his life. When he was in high school, he played basketball and football. He was never the star, but he was good enough to make varsity. The problem was that his immigrant parents did not appreciate his athletic accomplishments.
One day he came home with his varsity letter in basketball and proudly displayed it for his father. The reaction was not one of a typical American father. “Let me see if I understand,” said Mike’s dad, with his Eastern European accent. “This means that you spent many, many hours playing with a ball, like a child, is that right?” Mike was, of course, deflated although he knew all along that sports were not a high priority for his father. When Mike made the honor roll or had other academic achievements, he got lavish approbation. Scoring twenty points in a basketball game or earning a letter was hardly worth a mention.
Ever since that parental encounter, Mike has tried to develop a perspective on sports. The rewards for playing sports, as opposed to being a spectator, are apparent: bonding with peers, learning teamwork, controlling emotions, staying fit, and gorging on pizza after a game. But Mike is still troubled by his father’s attitude that sports are suitable for children but that adults have more important things to do. How do sports improve the mind? What is the substantive benefit? Could the many hours practicing and playing a sport be put to better use, perhaps by reading Aristotle or Montaigne or practicing the viola or doing quadratic equations?
When Mike was at Cal, before every football game he painted his face blue and painted an “i” on his chest; he was the “i” as part of a group of guys who spelled out “California” on their bare chests. They were rabid, hysterical fans who drank beer, wore their caps backwards, taunted opponents, and generally made themselves obnoxious. It was part of tradional fun college foolishness.
Mike ponders the emphasis on sports in American society. He thinks about the football mania in places like Texas, where high school kids are encouraged to crash into opponents with ferocity and abandon and intent to maim and dismember.
What happens to those kids later in life? Mike is now in his fifties. He no longer paints his face blue. He wears a suit and tie every day when he goes to his law firm. He plays golf and tennis and sometimes skis at Tahoe, but he no longer plays touch football or full-court basketball at the Julius Kahn playground in Laurel Heights. He’s aging, and he doesn’t have the time. Playing sports has definitely taken a backseat.
But Mike is still a sports fan. He reads the sports section every morning. He follows the Giants, the Niners, the Warriors, Cal, and Stanford. He will also view anything featuring Roger Federer or Tiger Woods, even their commercials. And he loves watching young female gymnasts who are four feet tall and weigh, on average, forty pounds. He does not do this to improve his mind, but solely for entertainment. Unfortunately, with respect to the local teams, the entertainment is currently of poor quality. Mike cannot believe how disappointing the Bay Area teams are. It’s amazing. Not a single local team in any major sport has distinguished itself in recent years. Whatever happened to the glory days of Joe Montana and Dwight Clark and John Elway and Jim Plunkett and, reaching back, Juan Marichal and Orlando Cepeda and Willie McCovey and, yes, even Barry Bonds? Why can’t Bay Area teams win titles? Is it the seductive climate of the Bay Area? Perhaps it’s the dysfunctional politics of the area that unsettles the athletes. Or maybe they’re affected by El Niño.
Mike’s wife doesn’t appreciate his preoccupation with sports. She thinks he should spend his free time more constructively. He should go online and study the latest Supreme Court decisions (including the dissents) or organize the photos they have collected over the years or learn a foreign language or make a soufflé or, at least, shine his shoes. She cannot understand how Mike can sit in front of a TV set for four hours at a time, rising only to go to the bathroom or grab a pear from the refrigerator. Mike points out that there is no statute that precludes idleness. The Protestant Ethic, that relies on guilt and says the harder you work the better person you are, has not been codified into law, so Mike can defy it.
Mike also gets a kick out of all the sidebars involving major athletes. What could be more entertaining than keeping track of the antics of the sweet and lovable boxer Mike Tyson, who chewed on the ear of opponent Evander Holyfield? (It’s rumored that this Christmas Tyson will be getting something he has longed for years: an IQ.) Or what about the preposterous posturing of Barry Bonds in the unending saga of his prosecution for allegedly lying to a grand jury? Or the outrageously colorful slacks worn by golfer John Daly, who has been in and out of rehab more times than he has made the cut in golf tournaments?
In a move that may imperil his marriage, Mike has also started watching the World Series of Poker.
Asher Rubin graduated from two major athletic powers, Columbia and Harvard Law School. He follows most sports, particularly curling and cricket. He plays tennis and golf but, when asked what he shoots in golf, will attack the questioner.
