There Will Be Blood

There will be Blood

Two massive and menacing figures peel away their masks to turn and circle each other. Each man gives the other a glowering scowl and prepares to serve as a meat pulverizer for the other’s face. As the fists, elbows, and spurts of blood begin to fly, one might start to wonder if the authorities are ever going to show up and put an end to this seemingly meaningless violence, or if someone is simply going to have to scrape it all up off the ground when it gets over.

Where can you go to watch this? No, not downtown to an inner-city gang war, or even your local fight club. You need look no further than Family Night at your local National Hockey League (NHL) venue.

The NHL is the only major sports federation that allows players to interrupt the action to whale on each other while the referees stand back and watch. Fighting has been a long-standing tradition in the NHL for a variety of reasons, and I thought it would be appropriate to take some time this week taking a closer look at some of these arguments.

1. The presence of possible fighting deters cheap hits and dangerous stick play.

Now that’s an interesting concept. It sounds so reasonable that I think we should implement the same principles into our public schooling system. If we just let kids go at each other from time to time, I bet we could virtually eradicate tripping and shoving in hallways, as well as premeditated acts of theft and violence in the lunch room. Besides, it would allow schools to cut that pesky peaceful conflict resolution from the curriculum - everybody knows what a downer that is.

2. Hockey needs “enforcers” to protect the stars.

Wait a minute, I thought that was what rules were for… my mistake. Silly me for thinking that referees were good for more than dropping the puck and calling harmless icing penalties. I guess I just assumed that the purpose of having rules for any sport was to protect both the players and the integrity of the game, but what do I know? If the NHL was even half as vigilant about deterring unnecessary cheap shots as the NFL is, one of the NHL's most prominent figures in Sidney Crosby might not currently be on injury reserve list.

3. People come to NHL games for the chance to see a fight.

No. People go to boxing matches, martial arts tournaments, WWE events, and dark alleys in the inner city for the chance to see a fight. They come to hockey games to see the intricate stick-work and goal scoring of Alexander Ovechkin, outlandish one-timers from Evgeni Malkin to Sid the Kid, and the impossible glove saves that make Dominik Hasek resemble Mr. Fantastic more than a hockey goalie.

Call me a purist, but I just don’t see how fighting belongs anywhere in hockey, or quite frankly, anywhere in sports. When will the NHL realize that it is allowing fighting to detract from the purity of not only hockey but the institution of sports as a whole? Every other legitimate American sports league has cracked down tightly on fighting, sending the right message to both our kids and society – it’s about time the NHL did as well.

There’s a classic Olympic adage that says that there is more honor in outperforming a man than there is in killing him. When Michael Jordan got ticked off at an opponent, he got back at them by beating them with a game-winning jumper. Lance Armstrong didn’t bury his rivals with his fists, but with his legs. For the sake of the purity of sport, and with so many kids idolizing NHL players, it’s time for the league to realize that they have simply been choosing to fight all the wrong battles. 

Zero-Minute Mile

Zero-Minute Mile

Appeared in the October 23, 2009 edition of The Cabinet

Citius, Altius, Fortius. The Olympic motto of “Faster, Higher, Stronger” has inspired athletes for generations to surpass the standards of physical capacity not only by themselves and their opponents, but to exceed the performances of their sport’s predecessors. The history books expound the stories of winners from year to year, but they also make particular mention of those who have achieved feats that no one had ever seen before.

Each sport has its own unique set of records: John Wooden’s 10 NCAA National Championships, Usain Bolt’s time of 9.58 seconds in the 100 meter dash, Lance Armstrong’s seven Tour de France titles, and Michael Phelps’, well, every event that he’s ever competed in. 

Our obsession with record holders can be traced back to the late 1940s and early 1950s when athletes around the world were jockeying to become the first to break the barrier of running the four-minute mile. Many contended that this four-minute mile business was beyond the limits of human capacity, but that didn’t keep ambitious harriers from chasing fame while running themselves into oblivion.

In 1954, medical student Roger Bannister of England became the first to achieve the milestone. With the mountainous feat now in tow, track and field’s illustrious “Four-Minute Club” began to grow. John Landy and Bannister became the first to run sub-four-minute miles in the same race in the 1954 “Mile of the Century”. In 1961, Jim Ryun became the first high schooler to duck under the four- minute mark. To date, over 1000 men have run under four minutes for one mile, with the world record standing at a formidable 3:43.13 by Hicham El Guerrouj of Morocco.

Many more are probably familiar with Jamaica native Usain Bolt’s jaw-dropping performances at the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing and 2009 World Track and Field Championships in Berlin. In case you haven’t heard, Bolt has revolutionized the art of sprinting by posting times comparable to cheetahs, greyhounds, and the Energizer Bunny.

Looking beyond just track and field, athletes across the board, both male and female are running faster, jumping higher and lifting more. With the insurgence of and demand for progress, where will it stop? If a guy can jump over a car today, what will it be tomorrow? A pickup? Semi? Power line?

Graphs would show that in many cases, achievement seems to curve toward an invisible line that is approached, but never touched – an asymptote. But my question still remains unanswered: Assuming this hypothetical asymptote is real, where does it exist? At what point do the physical properties of muscle and bone make it impossible for the mind to push the body any farther?

The answers to these questions have major implications for our society as well. Can our technologically driven society endlessly make progress into the wild blue yonder, or is there some point at which we’ve learned everything we can possibly know? What happens if and when we do reach that figurative roof of knowledge?

I am certainly no philosopher; I would barely consider myself having a great deal of expertise in the areas of either sports or writing. I just want to know if the idea of humans scaling buildings in a single bound is closer to reality than we may think, or if the pinnacle of human achievement in athletics is capitulated in Usain Bolt’s time of 9.58. I guess we’ll never know if we don’t keep trying. To infinity – and beyond!

SportsTube

SportsTube

Appeared in the October 16, 2009 edition of The Cabinet

There is something about sports movies that draws us in, even for those who have little to no interest in sports. No matter who you are, everyone can name a sports movie that has spoken to them in some way. Because of the way sport so often fits into our society in terms of our values and moral fortitudes, it makes sense that Hollywood has tried to capitalize on how sports can captivate our attention. In honor of our common heritage in the heartbreak, inspiration, courage, humor, and life lessons learned in sports, I’ve compiled a list of my favorite sports movies. My top 6:

1. Mighty Ducks I and II – I couldn’t pick just one, so I didn’t. Emilio Estevez and Joshua Jackson will forever and always be Gordon Bombay and Charlie Conway in my mind – I don’t care what you Dawson’s Creek or Breakfast Club fans may say. The inspiration of the Ducks is the main reason I care at all about hockey, and is the only reason I’ve developed into something of a Pittsburgh Penguins fan. Quack! Quack! Quack!

2. Glory Road – Surprisingly, this is the only basketball movie on the list. A combination of thrilling and heart-pounding game scenes alongside of a sobering and horrific portrayal of racial tension create a convincing and convicting tale of the 1966 national championship run of Texas Western College.

3. Happy Gilmore – “You want to die, clown?” The lavishness and abundance of quotable one-liners in this classic Adam Sandler film propel it onto my list. Although some of Happy’s escapades might be considered moderately questionable, give him a break. You’d do the exact same thing for your grandma.

4. Chariots of Fire – “I believe God made me for a purpose, but he also made me fast. And when I run I feel His pleasure.”  This 1981 Academy Best Picture about sprinters in the 1912 Olympic Games is my personal favorite. The stark contrast between the humanist Harold Abrams and the evangelistic Eric Liddell is an ideal picture of doing everything with both purpose and conviction. It also contains my favorite soundtrack on this list.

5. Remember the Titans – This football movie’s popularity has caused it to flirt on the border of cliché, but the movie’s message and soundtrack earn it a spot on my list. This movie was the first of our generation to powerfully integrate racism and sports, and is arguably the sports movie of our generation.

6. The Sandlot – “You’re killing me, Smalls!” This movie hits home with so many because all of us have gone through a phase of needing the acceptance of the baseball team, having a crush on the older Wendy Peffercorn, and making 12-year-old mistakes so we think are so big that we think our the world will end at the hands of a giant dog. If you are not inspired to ever watch any other movies on this list, this is the one to watch.

Other notables: Angels in the Outfield, Invincible, Little Big League, Rookie of the Year, Without Limits, Friday Night Lights, Miracle, Field of Dreams. I know, I know, I missed your favorite. Even though different movies speak to each of us in different ways, I hope this list inspires you to go out and either enjoy for the first time or rewatch some of these very worthwhile sports flicks. 

Winners and Losers

Winners and Losers

Appeared in the October 9, 2009 edition of The Cabinet

It goes without saying that Americans have established a culture of winning. We pride ourselves on everything from winning the last two world wars to having one of the most stable economic models in the history of the world.

It’s really not hard to see how we got to this point. The Roman gladiatorial games elevated winning and losing to the difference between life and death. Herbert Spencer argued that the strong (winners) live on in a world governed by survival of the fittest. The very fundamentals of capitalism propel winners to the highest ranks of society.

Naturally, this flows right into sports. Have you seen Friday Night Lights? Football coaches in the two largest class divisions in Texas make an average of $30,000 more than teachers. In the same vein, it doesn’t seem that Penn State is paying Joe Paterno an obscene salary to help his players find themselves or aid them with their math homework. There’s no question about it, from fantasy leagues to office Olympics, from high schools to the very pinnacle of professional sports, winning is king.

Somewhere near St. Joseph, Mo, Benton High School freshmen football coach Scott McCamy didn’t get the memo. Trailing late in a game against Maryville High School 46-0, long after most coaches would have tucked their tails between their legs and starting packing up the bus, Coach McCamy had something else in mind that would teach us all a lesson about values that we too very often ignore.

McCamy called a time-out, walked over to the Maryville coaches, and proposed an idea that would allow his team to score a touchdown while the Maryville defense essentially stood and watched. Without missing a beat, the Maryville coaches agreed. On the next snap, the Benton quarterback handed the ball off to running back Matt Ziesel, who sprinted 65 yards for an untouched score.

Confused yet? I was before I learned that Ziesel has Down Syndrome and was making his first appearance in a game this season. The YouTube video, originally posted so that Matt’s mother, not in attendance, could see the game, instantly went viral. Watching the video gives off a deep sense of satisfaction in realizing that that Matt's jubilant skip across the goal line was worth more than a shutout, the game itself, or “the integrity of the game of football”, as argued by some naysayers.

Obviously, the Maryville coaches saw something about this situation that justified violating football law that exalts a shutout to the pinnacle of defensive achievement. By letting Matt score, they achieved something greater.

Allowing the touchdown to happen was about more than just giving a handicapped student an opportunity to play. It’s about realizing that at the end of the day, there is far more to the game than what shows up on the scoreboard or box score. Without watching the last play, the Benton High School freshman team got trounced 46-6. Considering that one play, it may be the game of a lifetime for Coach McCamy, Matt, his teammates, and the Maryville players and coaches.

It is moments like this that convict me about my attitude toward winning. Excellence in sport is to be strived for, but selfless acts of sportsmanship such as this remind us that there must be something deeper and more transcendent than winning. 

In a gracious interview by email, Coach McCamy writes, “You want to be competitive and you want to win. However, […] effort, sportsmanship, and commitment [are] more important [than] winning to me. Matt just wants to be part of the team. His commitment is there, his sportsmanship is there, his effort is there. His athletic ability, however, is limited and I don't want […] to risk injury, but he DESERVES to have a chance to play a sport that he loves. He contributes and gives so much to the team, the least we can do as a coaching staff is give him a little back.”

In Matt’s last game, it was arranged for him to make a tackle, giving him one tackle and one touchdown for the season. When score is merely a reflection of the game’s story, then in essence, athletes and coaches are the storytellers. With people like Coach McCamy and Matt Ziesel around, write on, guys, write on. 

Not Just a Game

Not Just a Game

Appeared in the September 25, 2009 edition of The Cabinet

Bottom of Form

Call me a small-town boy, but I’m still getting used to being two stone throws and a river away from a major metropolitan city. It may have something to do with the fact that my town’s movie theater was closed down more than it was open, the nearest mall was an hour and a half away, or that these factors merely nurtured the virtue of being far too easily amused. Regardless of the reason, being so close to so much has continued to remain a novelty to me.

The best part about big-city life for an above-average sports fan like myself is how sports culture rides shotgun (or drives maniacally, depending on your level of cynicism) to the entirety of Pittsburgh society. It’s impossible to evade the onslaught of people sporting Big Ben jerseys and waving their Terrible Towels on Sunday morning, and that’s even before you leave church. However, my favorite part about the Steel City is their lovable losers of baseball, the Pirates.

Shocked? You’d be justified if you were. In case you haven’t heard, the Pirates just set a record for consecutive losing seasons for a professional sports team – ever. That means that if you’re a college freshman or sophomore, you probably haven’t been alive for a winning season. If you’re a junior or senior, you sure can’t remember one.

Then you may ask, “What’s the big deal about the Pirates?” The most obvious reason, my friends, is that I can go to a game without having to take out a second mortgage for tickets. For most, getting to go to a Steelers’ game is a gargantuan experience, an eagerly anticipated, mind-numbing event. I love Pirates’ games because they don’t have to be. I think it’s great that I can decide on Thursday to go to a Friday game, pay $9 for seats in right field (PNC Park has no bad seats) and still feel secure that my kids’ college funds are still intact.

Another reason I love the Pirates has to do with continuing a simple love of the game. One of the first memories I have is as a four year-old, going to a Minnesota Twins game when we visited my uncle in St. Paul. I remember happily guzzling down apple juice boxes they wouldn’t let us bring in the Metrodome, and wondering why we didn’t catch a foul ball in the nose-bleed section of the upper-deck.

My brother Phil idolized Twins superstar Kirby Puckett, so he decided to send him a baseball card for him to sign, along with a self-addressed envelope, a necessity mandatory for any legitimate piece of fan mail. I wrote to Twins no-name outfielder Pedro Muñoz because his was the only Twins’ card in my possession. A thousand birthdays and Christmases could not contain the excitement I felt when I got my signed Pedro Munoz card back two or three weeks later. Phil never heard back from Kirby Puckett.

For Phil and me, baseball was what we lived and breathed for during some key years in our childhood. We spent so many hours in the backyard coming up with ridiculous “unhittable” pitches, looking for balls that got hit over the gravel road by our house that was our home-run fence, patching up holes in the rusty old bed frame that served as a backstop, and playing with my mom’s piano students when they came for lessons. I’ll never be sure, but I have a sneaking suspicion that most of the piano students enjoyed playing with us more than playing the piano.

Even with this intense love, growing up in southwest Iowa made it difficult to choose a professional team to root for. I followed the Seattle Mariners the most intently because of the cool swagger and carefree love of the game embodied by “The Kid”, Ken Griffey Jr. However, the local radio station carried Kansas City Royals’ games, my grandpa from Colorado was a Rockies fan from their inception in 1993, and I would pull out my Atlanta Braves batting helmet (found at a garage sale) as a rally cap every time they were in a playoff pickle.

Being a Pirates fan is more than just continuing a lifelong love of the game of baseball. It’s about having something to claim as my own, having a place to belong to and being a part of something bigger than myself. The Pirates serve as the intersection between my passion for the sport and my desire to fit in somewhere as a “man without a team.”

You can argue all you want about how terrible the Pirates are this year (or even the last twenty), but to me, that’s inconsequential. I’ll be at the ballpark, enjoying my $9 tickets out in right field. 

A Boyfriend’s Guide to Sports

   Appeared in the October 2, 2009 edition of The Cabinet

At certain points in any male sports lover’s life, he is inevitably put in the precarious situation of having to choose, in some facet, between indulging his primal male instincts for sport and surrendering to the whims of love. This week I’ve decided to compile a list of do’s and don’ts for guys struggling with how to nurture true love while also retaining a healthy portion of inner machismo. So with no further ado:

1. You only need to watch ESPN SportsCenter once. Sure, it would be great to see today’s Top Ten plays one more time, but is it really worth having to sit through another twenty minutes of speculation on Brett Favre’s latest retirement? The ESPN ad that asks “What’s your SportCenter?” was meant to be answered with one of the twelve times, not three. Watch it once, do your homework, and go hang out with her. SportsCenter is never an acceptable excuse – never.

2. Learn to lose. Whether it’s bowling, ping-pong, pool, foosball or a game of HORSE, the best way to keep getting her to play you again is to let her think that she’s capable of beating you. This is especially important if she really isn’t into sports that much in the first place. If she actually can beat you at any of these games, learn to act like you let her win.

3. You only need to watch the last quarter of any televised sporting event, unless she’s interested enough in it to watch the whole thing with you. Major championship games are an exception, as well as rivalry games that you’re actually interested in. Unless you’re in the military, the Army-Navy game is not an excuse for skipping out on meeting her parents. Anything else exciting enough to watch will either be replayed on SportsCenter’s Top Ten list or readily available on YouTube.

4. Be flexible with overtime. I experienced this while watching an NCAA Tournament game last March with my girlfriend Katelyn. When the game first went into overtime, she said she was willing to stay for a while longer, but halfway through the second overtime, I offered to take her back to her room. I intently watched the rest of that six overtime game by myself in my room while she happily slept. Even the best of boyfriends may not be worth six overtimes, so if you want to keep her around, be flexible.

5. When she’s sick, she takes ultimate priority. There is no sporting event that should get in the way of you being there for her. Which means if she wants you to eat ice cream and watch Gilmore Girls with her, you better do it. Besides, it’s not like the Steelers are going to have any trouble with Cincinnati this week.

6. She will enjoy going to a Major League Baseball game, even if she’s not a huge baseball fan. There’s a pretty good chance that between cherry slushies, free stuff, the pierogie race, kiss cam, and just being with you, she’ll find something that she enjoys.

I hope you’ll find this list to be helpful whether love has just started knocking at your door or you’re already a seasoned pro looking to elevate your game to the next level. Learning to sacrifice and channel your enthusiasm for sport are the only ways that you can carry your relationship all the way to the end of the game. This time, she’ll be the one hoping for overtime.

The Phelps Effect

Appeared in the September 18, 2009 edition of The Cabinet

Top of Form

Unless you’ve been sipping your morning coffee in a cave somewhere for the past couple of years, you’re probably more than familiar with world-class swimmer Michael Phelps. Honestly, even that might not be secluded enough to escape the hubbub and prestige surrounding his eight gold medal winning campaign at the 2008 summer Olympic Games.

Phelps’ heroic efforts captivated and enraptured the world and kept us seemingly on the edge of our seats as we waited in eager anticipation, waiting to see if Phelps could pull out the next race.

But hold up just a second. How much doubt was there in your mind that he was going to pull it off? Phelps had been building up his resume as a world class swimmer leading up to the Olympics by obliterating world records. By the time the Olympics actually rolled around, Phelps ranked somewhere between Hercules and Achilles in terms of hero factor. He was fully dubbed swimming god five or six gold medals into his quest, and when Phelps had his now-famous miraculous pass of Milorad Cavic in the final inches of the 100M butterfly, no one, at least in the U.S., had any doubt that Phelps had prevailed because, well, he was Michael Phelps.

Our minds knit together the ideas of winning with Michael Phelps so closely that to try to separate the two ideas would put our minds into neurogenic shock. This phenomenon of elevating our culture (and especially sports) heroes to the level of gods is not something that Phelps alone has contributed to.

Before Phelps, Americans fell in love with another athlete who was raised to this premier status not only because he manhandled his world-class opponents in his sport for years but especially because he did it after manhandling death. There is little more All-American than the story of Lance Armstrong defying the odds to beat cancer and then going on to terrorize the Tour de France for seven straight years. And yet somehow during that amazing stretch, we as Americans developed a mindset that expected, or even demanded that Lance bring home the title.

Don’t get me wrong, I love sport culture in the U.S. and the way that athletes inspire us and give us hope. Sport allows our best athletes to represent what we stand for and give us a voice on an international level. I also love how Phelps, Lance, USA Basketball, the Williams sisters, and the USA Track and Field 4x400 meter relay teams, among others, have historically kicked tail in their respective fields.

My qualm is with an over-demanding culture whose appetite for success is rarely balanced with appreciation for the athletes’ work ethic, class, and character. There is a fine line between demanding an athlete’s best and unrealistically demanding that they always be better than everybody else. Chalk “the American sport legacy” up on the list in Proverbs 30:16 of things that are never satisfied.

Michael Phelps lost his first major individual final for the first time in four years at the World Swimming Championships this past summer in Rome. Lance Armstrong failed to win the Tour de France this year for the first time in his last eight attempts. While we hate seeing our heroes lose, it is often losing that helps define them as athletes… and as humans. Watching them lose reminds us that even sports gods are human, the famous fail, and the mighty are mortal.

This is not a call to abandon our cultural sports heroes. By all means, have sports heroes, heaven knows that right now our country needs people to look up to and hope in. But please, admire them not for their world records and gold medals, but for the beauty, love, discipline, and passion that they embody in what they do. They should inspire us not to covet their achievements, but to use their successes as encouragement in our day-to-day struggle with life.

The famous runner Steve Prefontaine once likened each of his races to a piece of art. This, in conclusion, begs the question: Are you painting a masterpiece, or something that not even your mom would hang on the refrigerator? Just as we look up to the titans of our day, the next generation of American heroes just may be looking up to you.