Over The Fence: For Love of Sport

I don’t usually talk to my friends about college sports, so I was thrilled when one of them brought up her school’s basketball team.  She explained how she watched and enjoyed Iona College’s performance in its first-round game of the NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament. The team lost, but she was drawn in by the excitement of the tournament and the fact that such familiar faces were actually part of such an event.

She was thrilled with the game.  The lead changes and momentum swings kept her watching, when she could have easily found something more traditionally appealing.

But when she saw all the basketball players hiding in hoodies and avoiding the crowds of the dining hall the next day after the loss, she was confused.

It’s incredibly difficult to make it to March Madness. These players should have been proud of what they accomplished. A team from a small New York college played an exciting game against a stalwart Ohio State University.  Yet this team acted more like a group that just went winless for the entire season.

It’s easy to tell the players they should be proud, and this would be an appropriate response. But sports fans today make it hard for players to enjoy anything less than winning a championship.

Fans understandably approach professional sports with an all-or-nothing attitude, while adults participating in these sports are doing so to make a living. However, college athletes are playing for their own enjoyment, with no monetary benefits outside of scholarships.

The first college sporting event I attended was a Fordham University baseball game. I had only heard of one player on either team, so I was really just at the game to enjoy the baseball.  Instead of getting caught up in a player’s at-bats, the way I would if I was watching David Wright or Ike Davis at a Mets game, I gave each at-bat an equal amount of attention. Each strikeout and RBI was as impressive as the next because no player was any more of a superstar than another.

So much of the focus in sports is on individual accomplishments and achievements. If the Mets win, but Daniel Murphy doesn’t get a hit, fans and broadcasters will still mention his rally-killing groundout with the bases loaded. After all, it’s Murphy’s job to drive in those runners, and if he doesn’t produce, the Mets aren’t required to keep him on the team.

If Vanderbilt wins a baseball game and Mike Yastrzemski doesn’t get a hit, people are still bound to say he didn’t do his “job.” But is it really Yastrzemski’s job to produce for the Commodores? College players have made a commitment to their school and team, but as students they have other commitments that could come before their sport.

So if college athletes are playing the sport for fun, why shouldn’t the fans be watching for fun? The players are playing at least partly for their love of the game, so it only makes sense for fans to be watching for their own love of the game.

Individual awards for MVPs and top rookies lead people to look at individual statistics and results. ESPN covers the Heisman Trophy ceremony more than it covers the Stanley Cup Playoffs. The focus is no longer on which teams are playing well — it’s on which players are the best.

The coverage and discussion isn’t about the sport as a whole, and it makes appreciating the entire game more challenging.

People always say the best part of the Little League World Series is that it’s baseball in its purest form. Somewhere, that purity and simple love for the game gets lost on the way to Major League Baseball, but college shouldn’t suffer the same fate.

College sports should be just as fun as Little League, where nobody cares about numbers at all.

Maybe if fans at my friend’s school were watching games to see entertaining basketball all season, then the players wouldn’t feel the need to hide from the rest of the school community. It would be easier for players to see the great work done by their respective teams if so much of the focus wasn’t on who made and missed specific free throws.

Who doesn’t think games are better than numbers? Enjoy the sport first, then the statistics (if you must).