UNC Charlotte

The other night I was at a basketball game between my brother's VCU Rams and the UNC-Charlotte Seahawks. We always have a great time there because he's in the pep band and I sit near him and we get super-rowdy. This pep band is one of the great cheering sections I've ever been in. I mean, we're no Cameron Crazies but we do our best to get inside the opposing team's heads. All the classics: "Airrrballll" "You Suck" "DE-FENSE" and such but also some real sophisticated stuff like...ok no nothing sophisticated. Some of the folks yell all sorts of horrible and unprintable insults. The worst thing I've ever called someone is "whitey" (we have none of those but opponenets sometimes field the pale ones in an attempt to shoot threes better than we do. Actually UNC-C succeeded quite well with about half caucasian players.

And that brings me to my point for the evening. Why is it that we get so wrapped up in these sports contests? Our emotions get so tied up in the success or failure of people we hardly know just because we have chosen to root for them for one reason or another. My brother attends this college. The Redskins simply play in a stadium closer to me than any other NFL team. The Steelers aren't even that close - they were close to the college I attended for five years. The New York Rangers are the beloved hockey team of my ex-girlfriend. So on and so forth the list goes.

Then our team loses and we have to explain it - because to honestly face their failure would be to admit of a mistake, a failure on our part. We must blame the refs, or focus on a single players screw-ups, or something, anything, other than admitting that we chose one side of the coin and the other one came up.

So next time your hometown heroes or national phenoms come up one point shy at the end, just think to yourself: Tails.

And move on.