The Transcendence of Sports

Part I: The Passion

It began with a short crossing route to #6. Santana Moss snatches the tough grab and uses his quickness to dash 17 yards and out of bounds. That’s it! That’s all it takes. One chunk at a time. I shouldn’t have felt this optimism; the previous score was soul-crushing and I knew this hurt all too well. But for some reason it felt different. I remained locked-in, like I just knew there was another chapter to this tale.

Shockey picks up 5 and stops the clock. Like that. Dorsey fires a laser down the middle into the diving glue-hands of Reggie Wayne. LFG!! Now the temperature had changed. 75 yards looked like a mile from 1:32, but that paint looked reachable at 1:14. The furor of the Orange Bowl came alive!

Another chunk to Shockey and out of bounds. Football is a game of momentum and this one had swung like a tsunami. By the time Santana flashed down inside the 10 off another cross, there was zero doubt remaining in the OB. You couldn’t hear yourself think, an energy that was almost visible. The Canes were just a few steps away; the Noles were yelling at each other. How fast the tide can change! The very next play…

WE DID IT!!! I don’t even need to close my eyes to be there. The imagery of that moment standing on those orange bleachers is forever burned into my psyche. I picked my young girlfriend (now wife) up in a massive hug and must have raised that 5’3” Italian five feet in the air! I remember just squeezing her. Lol The intensity and emotion and anguish and relief and joy all exploding out in bear-hug form. I put her down and joined a chaotic cacophony around me as thousands of sweaty red faces with smiles so big you couldn’t make them out hugged each other and threw beer everywhere. This wasn’t just a game, it was The Game. This wasn’t just a team, it was The U. The Canes had finally crested the mountain again; this was the moment Miami was back.

There is a brotherhood to being a Miami Hurricane. There is a brotherhood amongst Miami Hurricane fans. You can be across the country and if you are sporting Orange and Green and see someone else repping The U, it is an open door to say what’s up and acknowledge each other - one almost always taken. I’ve been given free items at cash registers out-of-state because I was rocking Miami and the owner understands the ‘Cane thing’. That ties back to how important that team has been to the South Florida community. How much the flavor of the team in the 80s and 90s represented the character of life in places like Liberty City. The U is part of the town’s make-up down there.

On that day twenty-three years ago, I marched down an old rusty spiral staircase with thousands who understand that brotherhood. There was just the white noise of the whole stadium departing as one. “We got some Canes over here!!” I screamed out. Maybe 50 said back “WOOSH! WOOSH!”. “We got some Canes over here!!!!”. This time the whole stairwell echoed it back. We continued our home chant for a bit as the concerted noise became a thunder. Outside was jubilant chaos! All the tailgates were firing up for round two; breads and meat were frying at carts and being devoured by The Devoured; drinks flowing everywhere!; people just openly sharing their stuff with anyone and everyone … as long as you’re on the right side. We knew that day. All of us knew. The U was back. The Canes weren’t just good again, we were great again. We wouldn’t lose another football game for over two years.

Brotherhood. That’s the true magic of sports. This unique and wonderful bond forms over team names and colors, history, stats, and scoreboards. Something that means so much to those involved - for many it becomes life defining - and yet, in ‘the grand scheme of life’ it truly has no meaning. Did it actually matter if Michael got that round orange ball into that round red rim in Utah in 1998? No; in fact, it had zero meaning. But OMG did that moment have meaning!

I could bring myself to tears thinking about all that man right there has meant to my life. An inspiration, a role-model, a magician, an entertainer, an engine, a vehicle of wisdom, confidence and self-understanding. I was obsessed with Michael Jordan growing up. I could talk for hours about the special moments surrounding his career arc. The Hollywood story that played out right in front of us. I could damn near narrate the words to Air Time decades later. I literally cannot imagine my life without sports.

I inherited my love of sports from my family. I’m the son of a double-Hoosier and grew up in a household where it was omnipresent. I can picture the living room I was standing in in 1987 when Keith Smart dropped his gorgeous floater in from near the fold-outs to win an NCAA title for my dad’s beloved Big Red. He went nuts! My mom was on cloud-nine too because they watched all those games together. I remember the intro of an old lady janitor whistling as she mopped Assembly Hall, getting it ready for the Candy Stripes to come running out before every local broadcast of home games. Sports was part of the life-air I breathed; as it was then, as it is now. This sense of unity and passion, truly a unique form of love, is something you inherit and pass on like many other forms of tradition and heirlooms. It really is something that becomes you. This magnificent photograph hung proudly in my basement as a kid. Now I keep it in my office.

My little daughter was brainwashed with Canes propaganda from birth. She never had a chance, and to this day sees the world through Orange and Green-tinted glasses. One of the most special moments of fatherhood for me was the Saturday morning of a big Miami-Nebraska matchup in 2015. I had given her this Sebastian the Ibis stuffy that sung our fight-song when you squeezed it. She loved that thing. We’d squeeze him and have it sing and dance every time the Canes scored a touchdown. We’d do that in front of the shrine I’d have around the television every gameday. Don’t judge me; it just is. My wife bought my girl (who is probably 2 at the time, or even under as she wasn’t yet talking) a cute Miami dress in kind of a cheerleader vibe. We had hung it on her closet door so she could wear it for the big game tomorrow. She must have woke up, stood up in her crib as she always did, seen that []__[] dress, and began humming our fight song. I woke up to this sound in the baby monitor… on gameday! I sprung out of bed like I was a grown child about to see Santa Claus in blood and flesh and ran to her room. She was smiling ear to ear ready to go Cane-crazy with dad… these are the moments you bottle for eternity. We kicked the snot out of the Huskers that day!

Sports bonds, it unites us. Sports not only serves as a binder, it is a foundational bond itself. It’s a societal creation that brings humans together. It serves positive function for a community, for a state, for a country, for a people. It sprinkles magical social seeds that grow into beautiful things. Dads who grew up brainwashed by the Hoosiers raising sons who grew up brainwashed by the Canes who raise their own kids one day similarly brainwashed by ______ (hopefully not the Gators). Weddings that are sports themed because the couple met in this glorious world where it means everything and nothing at once. Massive rivalries and cool traditions. Fields literally covered by fans reveling in the spectacle as much as the sport, some who have been camping out since the night before. The amount of positive things that spin off or feed into organized sports is amazing if you really sit and think about it. It fits American culture and who we are as a people very well, which is why sports has grown to be such a massive industry in the US as well as a cultural institution. There is true passion underlying sports. A fiery and wonderful kind that is tied to human excellence and a demonstration of what we are capable of when we focus our efforts inward, strengthen and refine as individuals, and then target all of this energy and effort and dedication into a singular (and often shared) goal. It’s a truly beautiful thing. One that feeds many other dynamics which are healthy, if not vital, in a society like ours.

And this is a primary reason why sports is under such attack in our coercive times, which is what I’ll begin digging into in Part II.