Whatever your opinion about sports, they do have a magical ability to bring communities together in a way that few other categories of culture and entertainment do.
If you doubt me, consider our microworld in the Upper Valley. There exists a constant string of events for every demographic slice here. We are awash in Alternatives to Boredom. Feel like getting close to an udder and cozying up to a candy apple? The Tunbridge Fair has got you covered. Have a hankering for a gallery talk with a Finnish scholar who studies climate change in the Arctic? You can catch that tomorrow in Hanover. Got an itch that only Sunny coming home can scratch? Shawn Colvin fans got that reference, and they will be in Lebanon on Veterans Day. Our friends, family, neighbors and colleagues are taking guided tours of the Justin Morrill State Historic Site and exploring an exhibition of 150 years of logging in Orford. Some will witness Russians dancing on their tiptoes in a performance of Swan Lake or hear the Persuasions sing in Randolph.
The thing about all those events is that, while you attend with a crowd, you experience it in an intensely individual manner. Let’s be honest: Most of the time, you’re not talking to the lady five seats over at the ballet. When the Finn makes a good joke, no one in the audience will spontaneously high-five a stranger. In my 40-plus years, never have I seen grown men jump up and down and hug anyone within arm’s reach at the conclusion of a Ferris Wheel ride. I don’t consider going to a crowded movie theater a great way to interact with new people.
Sporting events, though, are different. Sports captivate us because they combine so many things that thrill us as humans: physicality, drama, sexuality, speed, violence, passion, costumes, winners and losers, pressure, immortality. And we are in the sweetest of seasons from a sporting perspective right now. Baseball is hurtling toward the playoffs. NHL hockey teams are playing preseason games. Thirty golfers will chase $10 million this weekend. Fields around the Upper Valley echo with the screams of field hockey and soccer players. Football at every level is ubiquitous.
There is a blend of active and passive that make sports particularly seductive to the social aspect of our lives. At a football game, when the ball is in play, we focus on the field. When the whistle blows, we socialize. We gripe about the officials, share tips on how to get our kids to bed before 9, mock the opposing team’s uniforms, buy each other hot dogs, lament the lack of a running game, and discuss upcoming vacations. When our team lofts the ball toward the end zone, we hold our collective breath. As the ball floats, we realize, to our astonishment, that we have for some ridiculous reason pinned our hopes and anxieties and insecurities and aspirations onto that brown leather. It has become at once personal and communal.
The beauty of sports is in that moment. If we freeze the action and look around the stadium, we spy the best parts of or community on display. We see people from every compartment of our lives huddled together in the bleachers, united in a way that we almost never are elsewhere. A lot of the faces are so out of context that we need to blink a few times just to place them. Is that the lady who cuts my hair, mouth agape, wearing a Dartmouth sweatshirt? I could swear that’s my childhood pediatrician sitting in the same row as my mechanic. That guy delivers firewood. I think the guy next to him received an award for his research on obscured supermassive black holes. My goodness, that woman is French!
Through some powerful force, all of their attention has been diverted from the minutiae and crushing responsibilities of their daily lives. Just for an instant, the worries about stubborn back pain, the leaky roof, or how to pay for college recede. They have plunged into this experience, this exact clip of time, and they are fully, totally, completely present. This nonsensical game has succeeded in keeping the questions that haunt them at bay — Could I pull off a moustache? Am I someone who says “I could do that” or someone who just does that? If I really had to choose, do I prefer fiction or nonfiction? Do I have an appropriate balance between what I give and what I take in my personal relationships?
As the ball hits the receiver’s fingertips, our hearts leap and our blood surges. In a sensational flash, we feel every potential outcome. Will a ripple of euphoria spawn celebration in the stands? Will our collective soul rejoice? Might this moment allow us to brag, years hence, “I WAS THERE!”? Or will the ball hit the turf, annihilating our childish dreams, wrenching us from our reverie, our gasps and groans evaporating into the rare phenomenon of collective silence? Will we look at each other’s shock and sadness and disappointment and be startled to recognize so much of ourselves in these strangers around us?
Either way, we will feel it together, as a community who, for a few seconds, gathered together to cheer and root and pull for something. It feels wonderful, validating, and, yes, magical.
Mark Lilienthal lives in Norwich. He can be reached at mlilient@gmail.com.