The Emotional Attachment to Sports

Roller coasters are one of the easiest metaphors to describe anything that can rapidly change at a blink of an eye. Life, love, and in this case, sports, are all ideas that are compared to those man-made thrill rides we see at amusement parks. They all have the same premise: taking you on a small, minute long journey that can conjure up all kinds of emotions. You can start out extremely nervous or excited, waiting for your spot in line to finally get to the front. Sooner or later, you're on the actual ride screaming with enjoyment, or more often than not, with fear and anxiety. No matter how you look at roller coasters, they will always spark up some kind of emotion after going through them. "Let's do it again!" or "I'm never riding that again!" are probably two different statements you have heard someone said about them.

I have felt all of those emotions, and much more, by being an avid fan of sports. I am not able to tell you the exact day and time on the clock where my soul forever attached itself to sports, like a child clinging to their mom before their first day of preschool, but I can most definitely tell you how it all started. Most professional athletes would probably tell you their first attachment to the sport they play started when they were toddlers. They picked up that ball for the first time, and the rest was history. As someone that represents the majority of the world that is not one of those professional athletes, my love for sports started when I was a kid, like many others in this deep, multi-layered community. My father, a first generation immigrant to America from the Philippines, lived in San Francisco for his entire young adult life. He was in high school when he started living in America, and he immediately fell head over heels for the San Francisco 49ers, the city's professional football team. He watched the whole Bill Walsh and Joe Montana dynasty in the '80s, Steve Young in the '90s, and has never stopped loving the 49ers ever since (even though they choked away two Super Bowls in the last seven years). I remember being in elementary school watching almost every Bay Area sports team on TV. The 49ers, San Francisco Giants, and the Golden State Warriors were my favorite teams growing up, and still are. I do not think my dad will ever admit this, but looking back on it now, I feel like he really wanted me to love sports as much as he did, and made it a personal goal of his. He used to rent old documentaries on those legendary 49ers' Super Bowl wins in the 80s, just to show me how amazing that time was for him as a sports fan. What's funny now is that I am probably more attached to sports than he is.

If there is any one moment or memory that will forever be stuck in my brain as the exact time where I knew sports finally hit a beautiful chord on my heart strings, it would be in 2007. In that year, the Golden State Warriors were the #8 seed in the NBA playoffs, playing against the #1 seeded Dallas Mavericks. If you do not follow the NBA and do not know this story, the Warriors ended up upsetting Dallas in that 1st round series of the playoffs. This was the creation of the "We Believe" Warriors team that is now infamous in NBA history for being a "Cinderella story", a team that exceeds all expectation to create a "magical" season. At the time, it was a huge deal in sports and for sports fans on the outside, looking in. Everyone loves a good underdog story, and hates it when a team or player is "too good", or that when teams are prohibitive favorites, it's "not fair". What I love most about that time as I'm looking back, is that my dad and I would catch those playoff games on my grandma's small TV in her living room. We would come over to her house for every game because we did not have regular cable at home. That entire experience was new, both exciting and terrifying. Every score, every miss, and everything else in between generated a feeling I have never felt in my childhood before. I was yelling at every amazing play, or groaning at every mistake like my dad was doing, even if I did not totally understand what was going on all the time. My dad has seen numerous playoff games for the 49ers for a couple decades, and this was my first time watching one of our favorite local teams compete to win it all. The Warriors up to that point were one of the most depressing NBA franchises, with a long playoff drought. That Warriors team will always have a connection with the Bay Area. The culture and attitude that they brought with everything they did echoed throughout every city from Oakland to Fremont, San Francisco to San Jose, and even Stockton to Livermore. To this day, players like Baron Davis, Stephen Jackson, and Jason Richardson will always have a place to stay or have a free meal in the bay. As a kid, seeing these players represent the community that I'm from, resonated in me like nothing else I have felt in life up to then. Watching that playoff run from the '07 Warriors was like that first time having ice cream as a kid, listening to that one song that becomes your all-time favorite, or, if you believe in it, love at first sight.

You don't know what you're feeling, but you know that you never want to let it go.

I guess you can say that whole experience was the birth of my emotional attachment to sports. Going back to the roller coaster metaphor, it was that first drop at the beginning of the ride. At this part, you don't necessarily feel something at full capacity. You're not scared, not excited, you just let go and see where the ride takes you, especially when you get to the top and you're just looking down, waiting to be dropped at any moment. That's how I ended up where I am right now. It is 13 years later, and I'm sitting here at 23 years old during the coronavirus pandemic, reflecting on all of the joy and sadness that sports has given me. "Why does it mean that much to you?" is a question I am imagining you ask me right now. Well, let me break it down to you as best as I can.

I described that first feeling of those meaningful sports watching memories as if I won the lottery. What else do you do when you experience something new and end up enjoying it so much? You want to keep doing it, over and over again. Even though sometimes you go through times where things aren't going your way, or those times where it feels almost useless to keep going, you find that one reason to keep coming back to it. For sports, that emotional attachment can be strengthened by players or teams that inspire you. Whether it's seeing Jordan swishing that game winning shot, or Brady leading an improbable comeback on football's biggest stage, it invokes some sort of feeling. Seeing your favorite player retire, get traded away like bag of chips in the cafeteria, or suffer a career altering injury can really take away any trace of happiness in your life.

"You don't even know them in real life, why do you care so much?"

I think for most people like me, sports and its athletes represent so much more than just playing a game professionally. These people are individuals that come from different backgrounds, all trying to achieve one goal: to be the best. Stephen Curry from the Golden State Warriors, one of my favorite athletes of all time (go figure), is the most prime example of an attachment to sports that is bigger than the game they play. Throughout the last 5-6 years, Curry has had a tremendous rise as being one of the best players in basketball, and is well on his way as being one of the best players in NBA history (if all things go well, *knocks on wood*). He has done a lot for the game of basketball, other than being the greatest shooter ever. In basketball's long history, we have never seen a small player (under 6'5), be the biggest reason for a team's success. What his success has done is not measurable by just how many points he has scored, how many championship rings he has, nor how many 3-pointers he has made in his life. His success has given hope to anyone that is not doing things up to status quo, or for anyone that has been overlooked their entire life. Remember what I said about being an underdog? Curry is the underdog that ended up achieving way more than he was supposed to. For the last couple of years, kids are growing up wanting to be like Steph, and not Kobe or LeBron. It is much easier to relate to a guy like Curry. He's not physically different than most people, as being one of the smallest guys on the court almost every game. He does not have the most eccentric personality that commands every room he walks in. He represents the "regular" people that have the potential to do amazing things. Fans become more attached to these ideas that represent these players and teams, rather than just loving the product we see on television year after year.

Now, I can go on and on about how sports has added an entirely new dimension to my life ever since I fell head over heels for it when I was young. The one thing that you should take away from all of this, is that the passion and love you can feel for anything can create amazing experiences and feelings that make life a blessing to have. Whether that be sports, movies, art, literally anything that invokes something positive out of you, keep that with you for the rest of your life. Its those passions that make us feel human and keep us going. As much as I have talked about how loving sports has made me a more empathetic and emotional person, I don't even think I got to explain it all. That's kind of like describing a roller coaster, right? A person can tell you how many loops, twists, and turns you will go through. But, nothing is better than actually getting on the ride yourself. Chances are, you'll probably want to go on it again and again, even when you first claimed you might not like it. Ask any passionate sports fan about why they are so passionate, and I assure you that person might not be able to explain it. They will just hope that you understand it.