My Fanhood

When you run out of hands fingers for your championship rings, you're doing it right.

I still love sports. Few elements of American culture have the ability to call out the best in us the way the games we play do. Or highlight the worst in us. Our commitment to each other and our utter greed. Our shared sense that life should be fair and our continual pursuit of ways to game the system in our favor. Our desire to push the human body beyond perceived limitations and our willing blindness to the fact that the pursuit so often ends in a sacrifice on the alter of performance offered in the most unhealthy ways.

Where else but in sports are the ills of our culture—racism, sexism, poverty, usury, hubris, violence, and more—so clearly seen and celebrated? Where else can the best parts of us—heroism, honor, charity, fairness, competition, belief, teamwork, and more—break through and subdue, if even for a few moments, the ills I listed just a moment ago?

Please don’t read this as some sly, ironic takedown of sports. I meant the words I started this passage with. But love is never simple. And loving something means never blinding ourselves to its entirety. That would be lying, not love.

***

On arguments regarding historical greatness:

Michael Jordan is not the greatest player in NBA history. Neither is LeBron James. Or Kobe Bryant. Or Wilt Chamberlain. Or Kareem Abdul Jabbar. None of them run out of hands for their championship rings. None of them owned a decade in its entirety. None of them were coaching their teams while winning championships. None of them give as much credit to their teammates as he does. And I’m a Lakers fan; so saying this hurts me deeply. But it’s Bill Russell. Eleven rings don’t lie.

Like I said, love is never simple, even regarding sports.