| Thursday, January 6
By Frank Hughes
Special to ESPN.com |
|
I will say this up front: This column is going to be gushy, so if you
don't want to read gushy, sign off now.
|  | | Players like Cal Ripken and Michael Jordan, they're good for sport. |
But in truth, I believe that this time of year, hell, this time in
history, is due some reflection. Somebody asked Sonics coach Paul Westphal
the other day what his feelings were about the start of the new millennium,
and Westphal's reaction was: "It's just another day."
That was disappointing to me. Not just because it was a pragmatic,
practical approach, but because in my mind it is not completely true.
Yes, in logistical terms, it is a 24-hour period that will pass into yet
another 24-hour period and in the long term is just one in a long series of
days.
But that can be said of the day you are married, the day your first child
is born, the day you die. Let's be honest, anybody reading this column will
not be alive the next time a millennium party rolls around, and that in itself
is significant.
Having said that, I feel the need to share some thoughts about sports, and
the impact it has on our lives. This is not an NBA column, per se. This is a
column about sports.
Quite often in this forum, it is easy to be cynical, bitter and cutting
about overpaid, overhyped, self-important athletes who think their
contribution to society is much greater than it actually is. We see $100
million basketball players who don't appreciate what they have, or football
players who repay their idolatry by murdering their pregnant girlfriends, and
it is easy to become disenchanted or jaded with the state of sports today,
particularly given that owners of franchises are charging an exorbitant
amount of money to witness their product.
I often get e-mails from readers who defend the actions of the players they
like that I take exception with, or who disagree altogether with what I am
saying. But I tell them one thing: Lighten up. Have fun. This is sports,
after all. It is about disagreement, it is about fun, it is about
entertainment and enjoyment. We don't have to hold sports up to the same
barometers that we hold up presidential nominees, we just need to remember
what sports is all about.
Sometimes, that seems difficult. But please, as we head into a new
century, as we undertake what seems like a new beginning, let us remember
that while sports is of paramount importance in our society, it is about
games. It is about fun. It is about getting away and escaping.
Let's not lose focus of that. Because sometimes it is too easy to do so.
Whenever I start to forget what sports is about, I try to remember some of
the great moments I've lived through, some startling, some mundane, all
germane.
Earlier this season, I found myself getting upset watching games, and what
I soon realized I was upset about was the lack of competitiveness, the
missing element of games coming down to the final seconds, the final shot.
I mean, that, to me, is the embodiment of sport. One team facing defeat,
one team grasping on to a victory, and fighting tooth-and-nail for the final
outcome. Not just that, but 20,000 fans screaming and cheering for one side
to accomplish that outcome. That is what sport is all about, the unification
of many people for one common cause.
I was watching one of those end-of-the-century shows that review
everything that happened in the century, and it made me come to a
realization: Sports offsets nearly everything.
There was a shot of Hitler, then a shot of Jesse Owens in the 1936
Olympics. There was the Oklahoma City bombing, and there was Michael Jordan's
final shot to beat Utah. There was Vietnam and there was the women's World
Cup soccer team. There was the atom bomb and there were Joe DiMaggio and
Mickey Mantle.
Life brings us down. Sports lifts us up.
Everybody has a story like this, but this is mine: I'll never forget the
first live sporting event I ever went to. I was about 8 and my dad took me to
a Washington Redskins-Baltimore Colts Monday Night Football game at Memorial
Stadium in Baltimore. We were Redskins fans. Billy Kilmer vs. Bert Jones. I
couldn't believe it. All the people. The lights. The field. The players. The
cheerleaders. The game. I was enthralled.
So enthralled, in fact, that when two drunks in the row behind us
literally got into a fight over which one of the cheerleaders he liked
better -- I kid you not -- and spilled an entire beer down my dad's back, I
didn't even notice. He told me about it later. I was oblivious to it at the
time.
It makes me try to remember some of my fondest sports memories, the ones
that keep me coming back to watch games.
The best NBA game I ever saw was the Eastern Conference Finals between the
Orlando Magic and the Indiana Pacers at Market Square Arena in 1995. The game
was tight the entire time, until the final 30 seconds, when I witnessed four
of the most incredible shots.
With Indiana ahead, Penny Hardaway came down and hit a three-pointer for
Orlando that just sucked the life out of the crowd. That was matched by
Reggie Miller, who literally was falling out of bounds when he threw up a three
to regain the lead. Crowd goes crazy.
With the arena at high decibels, Brian Shaw made a three-pointer of his own,
which put the Magic ahead by a point and again drained the fans of their emotion.
And then, at the final buzzer, Rik Smits hit a picture-perfect 16-footer to
clinch the win for the Pacers, and the people in the arena were delirious.
You could feel their energy with each play. Four shots. Four makes. Four lead
changes. I love games like that.
My favorite Jordan memory is one that is probably too obscure for most
people to remember, but I recall thinking when he did it, Did I just see
what I thought I did?
It was against Seattle in the 1996 Finals. One of the Bulls players threw
a three-quarters court pass to Jordan, who had to go high in the air to get
it. When he caught it, he turned to come down and Frank Brickowski was
standing there ready to take a charge.
Still in the air, Jordan put the ball behind his back, contorted his body
to avoid Brickowski and came down with the ball on the other side of him.
Brickowski could just stand there as Jordan somehow got past him for an
uncontested dunk. It was one of the most amazing, split-second moves I've
ever seen, and to this day I don't know how he pulled it off.
The greatest event I've ever been to was the day Cal Ripken Jr. broke Lou
Gehrig's record for consecutive games played. That 15-minute, nonstop ovation
as Ripken ran around the stadium slapping hands with as many people as he
could touch. People were seriously crying in the stands, it was so touching,
so emotional. I was crying. I couldn't contain it. And I'm not even sure what
it was. Certainly, I was happy for Ripken. But I think it was more that he
harmonized so many people, that so many people could band together to show
their appreciation. It's the same feeling I get each and every time I watch
"Field of Dreams." To me, it was a defining moment in sports, one I'll never,
ever forget.
Just as I'll never forget the feeling I had, and so many others did as
well, when the women's soccer team lined up for penalty kicks this past
summer. Just as I'll never forget the feeling I get when I play catch with my
son. Just as I'll never forget the feeling I get every time I hear Al
Michaels say, "Do you believe in miracles?"
I hope I see many more in the 21st century.
Frank Hughes covers the NBA for the Tacoma (Wash.) News-Tribune. He is a regular contributor to ESPN.com. |  |
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