It's Just A Game

Sport:  Noun.  An athletic activity requiring skill or physical prowess and often of a competitive nature.  Nice try Webster, but it’s a little more complicated than that.
 
Sports help us build on a character trait that so many of us lack these days: Faith.  Faith that our team can come back from being down 20 points in the fourth quarter of a basketball game.  Faith that our Quarterback can drive 97 yards and score a touchdown with less than two minutes left in the game.  Faith that, even though our pitcher hasn’t hit a homerun in his entire career, he may still get his first one right here.  As a Grand Slam no less.  Yes, faith in the “impossible.”
 
My faith lies with the Portland Trailblazers.
 
Why?
 
Maybe it’s because I want to do my father right by rooting for the team I grew up watching him and his friends hoot and holler for.  Maybe it’s because I’ve never lived more than 30 miles from Portland.  Maybe it’s because I enjoy rooting for the underdog.  Whatever the reason is, they get full, 100% faith from me. 
 
I try not to follow the team blindly.  I try to be realistic when discussing opportunities the Blazers have in front of them.  I try to forget that I still cheered for a “Jail Blazer” team.  But I am only human.
 
Okay, so it’s a stretch to say the Blazers are going to win an NBA Championship this year, but it COULD happen.
 
Could.  What if.  Maybe.  Words that are most commonly found in sentences involving our favorite sports teams. 
 
Basketball is at the top of my list because it covers so many important skills.  Self-awareness, endurance, strength, agility, unselfishness, passion, and most of all, faith.  A game where one person’s abilities are not all it takes to win a championship.  It takes five guys, working together, on both ends of the court.  It takes a coach who knows his opponents, and has faith in his players to follow his lead.  It takes a General Manager who can help put together a group of players who want to do good by the team, not good by their pocketbooks.  But most of all, it takes fans who will follow blindly.  Fans who will stand on their feet for every swoosh and every dunk.  Fans who will cheer for a player’s hustle, even though his work won’t get written down in the stat book.  Fans who cheer when the star sits down, and the rookie gets his shot at the ten foot-high metal rim.  Fans who are going to see this thing through, no matter what.
 
I would put my name in that category.  In the same category as the 15,000 people who showed up in downtown Portland to celebrate the first playoff game in 5 seasons.
 
We all know it’s just a game.  That’s why we watch.