Basketball and Springtime
The first daffodils are blooming in Cambridge, and the snow banks have finally melted. The students have headed off to warmer climes, to drink off any extra brain cells they might have acquired during the year, and the town is blessedly quiet. And me, I’ve been spending far too long in the wood-paneled depths of the neighborhood pub, watching college basketball.
This is a fairly natural thing for a native North Carolinian to do, of course. Basketball is something close to a religion down there, almost eclipsing the insanity of Red Sox nation. To give you an idea, before my wedding, several older men approached me with a quandary: there was a chance that if UNC advanced in the NCAA tournament that they would play a game during my wedding reception. Of course, they loudly protested, they would be at the reception, but might it be possible to have the game playing in a back room so they could check score periodically? In the end, crisis was averted, for Carolina lost earlier in the tourney.
What’s interesting about my current basketball fever is that I’m usually quite immune. Indeed, I only watch the NCAA tournament fully when I’m away from Chapel Hill. I like the feeling that everyone down there is watching the game just as I am, and felt bummed out at the Tarheel’s loss at exactly the same moment I did. And I love talking with my family after the game, and hearing about the progress of the dogwoods and the azaleas and magnolias.
There are, among my friends, some intellectuals who find the love of sports too clannish for comfort. I think there is some truth to this criticism, but I think it is also in human nature to have some petty rivalries. I dream of a world without war, and I’m idealistic to believe with wise governance that might be possible. And if in that world men still get drunk and have fist-fights in bars over their sports teams, that’s okay with me. La coeur a ses raisons que la raison ne connait point.
This is a fairly natural thing for a native North Carolinian to do, of course. Basketball is something close to a religion down there, almost eclipsing the insanity of Red Sox nation. To give you an idea, before my wedding, several older men approached me with a quandary: there was a chance that if UNC advanced in the NCAA tournament that they would play a game during my wedding reception. Of course, they loudly protested, they would be at the reception, but might it be possible to have the game playing in a back room so they could check score periodically? In the end, crisis was averted, for Carolina lost earlier in the tourney.
What’s interesting about my current basketball fever is that I’m usually quite immune. Indeed, I only watch the NCAA tournament fully when I’m away from Chapel Hill. I like the feeling that everyone down there is watching the game just as I am, and felt bummed out at the Tarheel’s loss at exactly the same moment I did. And I love talking with my family after the game, and hearing about the progress of the dogwoods and the azaleas and magnolias.
There are, among my friends, some intellectuals who find the love of sports too clannish for comfort. I think there is some truth to this criticism, but I think it is also in human nature to have some petty rivalries. I dream of a world without war, and I’m idealistic to believe with wise governance that might be possible. And if in that world men still get drunk and have fist-fights in bars over their sports teams, that’s okay with me. La coeur a ses raisons que la raison ne connait point.
