I lived in Chicago from the late eighties until the mid-nineties, which if you follow pro basketball and/or pop culture you’ll know was the time that Michael Jordan became the most famous person on Earth. I got to witness a lot of incredible things, but nothing was more incredible than the scene that followed the Bulls’ first championship in 1991. If you’ve never been in a big city when the hometown team wins its first title after decades of futility, well, let’s just say that it’s quite a thrill.
So I have a pretty good idea of what went on in New Orleans last night—pure joy, pure happiness, pure mayhem (the good kind). Lots and lots of hugging and high-fiving. And no city was more overdue for something nice like this to happen. But here’s the thing: if it were legal to gamble on professional sports (ahem), I would have bet a lot of money that last night’s party would have been in Indianapolis, not New Orleans.
Why? Because not since watching Michael Jordan have I seen an athlete who hates to lose more than Peyton Manning does. It’s a cliché, “hating to lose”—I mean, who likes losing, and who doesn’t like to win?—but if you’ve ever played sports or had to push yourself physically, you know how motivating the fear of failure can be. Manning and Jordan are/were both preternaturally gifted athletes, but so were their competitors. What makes/made them the best was their focus, drive, determination, and disgust at the prospect of losing. I simply didn’t think Manning would let the Colts lose the Super Bowl.
And that’s why you gotta love sports: underdogs Drew Brees and Sean Payton not only made the Colts lose the Super Bowl, they destroyed the NFL’s conventional wisdom along the way.
Brees is six feet tall on a good day. A prototypical NFL quarterback (like Peyton Manning) is 6’4”, 6’5”: all the better to see and throw over gargantuan linemen. To make matters worse, five years ago his throwing arm was practically ripped from its socket. Brees’s first team, the San Diego Chargers, tossed him to the curb despite his having had two excellent seasons with the team. He ended up in New Orleans, where he’s been the league’s second-best quarterback for five years, and now he’s a Super Bowl MVP. Almost as good, he’ll probably never have to pay for a meal in Louisiana ever again.
It was head coach Sean Payton who decided to take a chance on Brees. No coach in the league better understands or utilizes advanced statistical analysis. Payton blitzes on nearly every play, knowing that while on some plays he’ll get burned, over the long haul, the percentages will work in his favor—like when Tracy Porter intercepted a pressured Manning throw and returned it for a game-clinching touchdown. And the turning point in last night’s game was the onside kick to open the second half, a decision that shocked NFL traditionalists—indeed, it was the first onside kick in Super Bowl history that didn’t occur in the waning minutes of the fourth quarter. You can read about the math behind the decision in this article on Five Thirty Eight.com. Far from being a crazy, rash choice, the onside kick was a very smart and probably even safe call. All season long, Payton has put his and his team’s faith in the numbers, and last night was the ultimate payoff.
Don’t get me wrong: there’s plenty not to like about sports, too: the poisonous aspects of the jock culture that permeates our middle schools and high schools. The corrosive effect big-time scholarship athletics can have on our universities (Robert Maynard Hutchins knew about this sixty years ago!). The appalling amounts of taxpayer money we spend to build stadiums and facilities for billionaires, despite studies that show there is no local economic benefit.
But just when I think I’ve got no use for sports, something like the 2010 Saints pulls me back in: redemption, the ultimate realization of human potential, topped off with good old-fashioned heart-tugging emotion. A great story—and what’s better for us publishing types than a great story?
What about you? What’s your favorite sports story—either one you’ve experienced in person or one you’ve read about? Tell us in the comments!
So much to comment on … understanding the feeling of going from barren wasteland to top of the football world; knowing in my gut that New Orleans would win because the story’s just so right; taking a chance on an underdog; taking a chance, period. And my favorite sports story? There are those heart-tugging ones which I can never forget (the most recent … Jake, the ultimate USC kidfan … http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dX0ovhkgR7s), but I tend toward in-the-moment, scream-and-jump memories. And for me that had to be Mike Jones’ game-ending tackle in the Super Bowl XXXIV … and knowing the Missouri Tigers would claim the #1 ranking in 2007 after they sacked Kansas QB Todd Reesing for a safety (and him coming up with a clod of turf on his helmet).
One word: Stotan!
We rely on Tim to edit all of our sports scenes (Crutcher, Gill, MAGGIE’S BALL . . .) and now you know why. Football is a mystery to me. My favorite sports story is about basketball and lacrosse. I was lucky enough to go to UVA while Ralph Sampson played on the UVA basketball team. Talk about pure mayhem–the good kind! Ralph Sampson was god. G O D. I played lacrosse and one day I was running late for the bus that would take me from U-Hall back to the main part of the university. I sprinted through the circular bowels of U-Hall unable to see around the curve, intent on that bus. I was wearing a lovely long hippy skirt and my arms were full of books (yeah, right) and I had my lovely skirt up around my neck so that I could run really fast. Right into Ralph Sampson. I’m still blushing but I made my bus. Ah, sports.
I’m with Virginia… Tim has edited my sports stuff with a hundred percent accuracy. I know my way around the sports world for an old guy, but I defer to Tim every time and I’m never sorry. I was with the Colts, for the same reason I was for the Jordan Bulls. Something about a single athlete elevating his or her entire sport makes my heart swell. Pele. Michael. Martina. Tiger. (Sorry, Tiger’s “exploits” are his business, not mine.) Cheryl Miller. Joe Montana. Bill Russell. Babe Dedrickson (Sp).
But New Orleans had this coming. I was more astonished watching the images following Katrina than I was at those of 911. I have seldom been more ashamed of my government than I was then, and I came of age during Vietnam. There is serious courage in that town. And last night there was serious joy, if joy can be serious.
That said, I’m a little worried about the state of American football. The information coming out about the cost of all those hits to the head is irrefutable. It’s not just the concussions, but the lesser hits too. The younger the player the greater the risk of damage, and we have eight year olds playing full-pad tackle. Well-meaning fathers are bulking their sons up over three hundred pounds in high school, believing they have no chance to make a Division I university line without that kind of poundage. Bulk up over three hundred, sustain a knee or ankle injury and your already slim chances just went out the window. Prozac City. Even if you do make it to a Division I school, your chances of going on to the pros are Powerball lottery-like. Try running off eighty extra pounds on shredded knees. When I was growing up in the fifties, there was one pro lineman who weighed over three hundred pounds. Big Daddy Lipscomb. And if I remember right, he was over six-five. He was also a heroine addict. I digress… the original point is that as long as players get bigger and equipment gets more sophisticated, we’re going to be more willing to put kids in harm’s way.
And yet, it’s still a joy to watch them take to the streets in New Orleans. Evolution just doesn’t work very fast.
In terms of inspiration sports stories, I have a soft spot for the story of Jason McElwain’s last (and only) game as a high school basketball player. If you’ve never seen it, it’s definitely worth watching: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ngzyhnkT_jY&feature=related
On a personal level, my favorite sports story was the Philadelphia Phillies winning the World Series in 2008. I’m 27, which means I’d gone 100 combined seasons between the four major sports teams without having seen a championship. While there’s no denying how much the Saints’ victory meant to New Orleans, the euphoria Philadelphia felt after the World Series–and the subsequent parade in front of an estimated 1 million people–was breathtaking for us.
Jody: one of my weird college jobs was leading an hour-long “architectural” tour of a Frank Lloyd Wright building close to campus. One Saturday morning, Georgia Frontiere and her small entourage were in my group! She was extremely nice and asked a lot of questions afterward and tried to give me a tip (which I couldn’t accept). So I was happy for her when they won the SB several years later.
Chris Crutcher: yup. From the bigger kids and too-competitive junior leagues to the awful, horrible college programs that treat the kids like raw meat to the NFL’s only recently even being willing to take an honest look at the head injury issue — Americans don’t want to know how their football sausage is made. I am hopeful that a corner has been turned in terms of awareness and helmet technology, but there’s a scary potential time bomb lurking down the road with the guys (esp lineman) who’ve played in the league in the last 10-15 years.
Chris: That is a great story. I’m not going to watch the video, because for some weird reason it causes my allergies to flare up, making it seem like I’ve been crying. And the Phillies are pretty well set up to contend for the next 4-5 years, which is nice for you.
I actually thought the Saints were going to win.No cosmic rightness, no will of the gods, they simply had an ability this year to do the right things at the right time.
When I was in Junior college, our basketball team had a 5′? guard by the name of Spud Webb. He took the team to its first JUCO national championship. I remember stilling in the student union building and listening to the game with other students and the excitement and pride we felt when we won. I felt a similar excitement a few years later when he won the “slam Dunk” contest.
Who says the little guys can’t get it done.
The one and only time I’ve been at all interested in basketball (sorry, Tim) was my senior year of high school. We had a pretty great team, a bunch of my friends played on it, and EVERYONE went to all the games. We even made it to the district playoffs. (Maybe even the state playoffs? I can’t quite remember.) At any rate, people carpooled to the playoff game, which was away. Throughout the season, the guys in my class had a chant they shouted whenever they thought the ref made a bad call. It went:
“Nuts and bolts, nuts and bolts. We got screwed.”
Which, when they shouted it at this playoff game, got our section a visit from our school’s disciplinarian. Apparently, it’s not how Catholic school kids are supposed to behave.
When I was a kid I was crazy about Canonero II, a huge brown racehorse from Venezuela with a crooked foreleg. In the 1971 Kentucky Derby he was an unknown, not considered good enough to race in such an elite field, and was ranked last out of twenty starters. He moved from eighteenth to win the Derby by more than three lengths. It was considered a fluke and he wasn’t the betting favorite at the Preakness. But he won that race and set the course record doing so. By the time the Belmont rolled around he was the Cindrella horse everyone was rooting for. He was the fan favorite, a national hero to the people of Venezuela, and was a sure bet to win the Tiple Crown. But he ran a poor race and finished fourth. (It later turned out he was “fatigued” and should not have been entered). I’ll never forget the Sports Illustrated article about the Belmont where the owner consoled the trainer and fans; “Be cheerful! We have become rich and famous, the horse is all right and the future is ahead of us.” The following year he won the Stymie Handicap by beating the 1972 Ketucky Deby winner (Riva Ridge) and setting the course record.
I too watched a lot of basketball in the early 90’s. The Knicks were my team and I loved the Starks, Mason, Oakley, Ewing era even though they just broke my heart over and over and over again. Then they did something unforgivable…. they traded Oak and I couldn’t handle it. I cut them off. I just stopped watching. That would be like the Yankees trading Bernie Williams. It’s unthinkable. So my sports story is still to come I think. My greatest sports regret is never seeing Michael Jordan play live. I missed that. Knicks v. Bulls tickets were too hard to get here in NYC. I did see Michael on Leno a few weeks ago. Leno asked him if he could still dunk. Michael answered, “ARE YOU STUPID!?”
[...] their buzzers unbuzzed. Of course, there are those other times (for me, anything having to do with sports, military history, or *gasp* math) when I am completely and utterly useless…but we’re [...]