An idea I had a long time ago, that has taken me this long to finally sit down and write.
In my life, I've been to three football games. If I were to guess, I'd say I have been to ten basketball games, and I think I've been to six baseball games. And if I were to be truly honest, I remember more before and after the games than I do during the actual thing. Why is that? I'm not sure. Maybe it's because of the anticipation before a game. This past December, when I went to go see the Giants schmear the Packers at MetLife Stadium, I remember driving in the car on the way there the most. My good friend Annabelle had previously asked me why it mattered so much to me. Why was I so dressed up? Why did I care? Now, I don't remember word for word what I said, and I'm sure if I looked very far back into my messages I'd be able to find it. But the gist of it was, in my opinion, the purpose of going to a game is to make your players feel welcomed, loved, and appreciated. To make them feel at home. And I said to Annabelle that I didn't care if the score was 56-0 at the end of the night, Giants' win. All I wanted to do was support my team and show them how much people care.
Something I didn't tell anyone before the Giants game was that I really thought the Packers were going to win. All bias aside. I'll never forget leaving the family room on the night of that playoff game, when the Giants came into Lambeau Field and kicked the crap out of the Packers. And I knew that if there was anything that the Pack was capable of, it was showing other teams who they truly were. I really, really thought the Pack had this one in the bag.
Turns out they didn't.
And hey, that was alright! I stayed true to the words I had said 4 hours earlier, that it didn't matter. Win or lose the point was that you still loved them. I really didn't care.
But when you really think about it, everyone cares.
Why?
Why does it matter so much? Why is winning the only answer?
Why was I, the one who said in the first place that the outcome had no affect on my attitude, so upset? Regardless, I still went to school wearing my Green Bay shirt, and prepared for all the nasty comments from New York fans the next day. But I felt the sadness, and the for some reason the regret.
Regret?
I think I felt regret because towards the middle of the day on Monday I started wondering if there was anything I could have done differently. Writing this now it sounds so strange but I really do mean it. What if I hadn't gone? What if I had had different seats? What if I came a little bit earlier? A little bit later? Obviously it didn't matter. None of these options would have affected the way Aaron Rodgers threw the ball. And I knew that the whole time! Then I got to thinking what if, in some weird universe, that was a reality. That if I had sat in a different way, or come a little bit later, the game would have been different. And what if it was true? Would I do all those things if it meant a win for Green Bay? What if the missions were difficult, and dangerous, and awful. Would I still do them?
What are people willing to do to win? How important is it?
If I could somehow go back and change the course of the play off game last year I would. Of course I would! It would have been fun for me to go to school and know that my team had beat everyone else's. Living in New York, everywhere I went I'd be the winner. It would have been fantastic.
However, that's what would have worked for me. It would have worked for my dad, and my sisters, and my relatives, and all the other Green Bay fans. But would it have worked for everyone else? Probably not. Definitely not.
The fact of the matter is, everyone wants to see their team win. No one doesn't. Everyone wants to beat someone else. Everyone wants to say their team is better than the other. But someone always gets hurt. Hurt sounds too sensitive but I'm serious. Where there is a winner there is always a loser.
So maybe it's best if we can't control anything. There is some beauty, actually, in the untouchable nature of sports. It doesn't matter what we wear on that day, or what mood we're in. What happens on the field is among players. And our job as fans is not to be concerned with how it will make us feel. But rather, to suppor the team that makes us want to love them no matter what happens.
If I could see Green Bay go to the Super Bowl every year that would be great. But after a while I think it would get a little boring. What's the fun in knowing how it's going to end! If we knew how to change the course of a game it wouldn't be exciting! And we wouldn't grow as fans. I grow and learn a lot more when my team losers than when my team wins. I learn what they wish they had done differently. I learn what they regret and what they want to do next time. I see them set goals, I see them grow.
And that's what really matters. It matters who wins but it also doesn't. My dad grew during the time that the Packers were not nearly as good as they are today. And he watched his boys thrive under the leadership of Brett Favre. No one saw that coming. If they did, I think it would be a lot less thrilling than it was when it came as a surprise. So the answer is stand by your team. Stand by them no matter what, even if you feel disappointed. What's important is not how you, the individual feel. It matters how your team makes everyone feel, and how you can help to keep that passion alive.
