“Amongst all unimportant subjects, football is by far the most important”
is a quote famously attributed to Pope John Paul II, an avid sportsman and a lifelong football fan. And I don’t know if I have ever heard a more spot-on description of the essence of sports and why they matter to us. Why do they matter to us? Why should they matter to us? If they are amongst the unimportant subjects, how can they be important?
I never thought about these vague, esoteric, slightly pretentious questions until I was forced to think about them after the pandemic truly took its final form and everything in the sports world was put on hold. Every single game, every single league, every single sport, canceled. Just like that. I realized the seriousness of COVID-19 not through news of cases spreading, but through the announcement of the NBA suspending its season overnight, literally in the middle of a game!
For over two whole months, I was deprived of any live sports. Two sides battling it out on a pitch or a court or a field was not an essential service, I learned. And why should it be? What essential service does a game of football provide? Why was I aching to watch a contest between twenty two random men I had never met? Why, if the only thing common in me and them was the color of our jerseys, did I feel so invested in such a trivial, non-essential spectacle? Why did I miss it so much? Perhaps I still don’t understand fully why I feel so connected to these competitions involving physical activity among those who are virtually strangers to me. Because isn’t that what sports is essentially? How could it be anything more?
I had some time to ruminate over these queries before the eventual restarts of various leagues around the world. I thought about all those moments in my life where sports had given me unparalleled joy. All those buzzer beating three pointers, the improbable goals in the 90th minute, the dramatic sixes off the last ball, the hail mary touchdown passes as time expired, the forehands judged to be millimeters away from being called out. The penalties issued in the stoppage time of extra time that swung fortunes. The dot balls, catches, and wickets in the death overs that decided the results of games, tournaments, and careers. The emotions associated with each one of those occasions. From the highs of ecstasy to the pangs of defeat. Celebrations enjoyed, obscenities screamed, hugs exchanged, fights ensued. Sports gave me all. And it continues to.
But the beauty of sports, in my opinion, isn’t about any of those heart-stopping moments, they are just a bonus. The beauty of sports lies in the fact that it has an undeniable ability to build communities among groups of people who might otherwise share nothing else in common. The beauty to break barriers and band together on a global platform through something like the Olympics yet also in a much more intimate and personal way through a bond of friendship based on a mutual love of the same club. The beauty of competing against one another, yet uniting as one.
I am not sure what exactly sports means to me. Playing it feels like an ingrained way of passing the time with friends. Watching and discussing it feel like basic staples of daily life. Writing about it feels like a natural extension of my personality manifesting itself. Ranting about it feels like a cathartic experience. Living without it feels like the absence of a good friend.
If I could propose an addendum to Pope John Paul II’s statement, it would be:
Sports does not matter in the large scheme of things, but when it comes to sports, nothing else matters.