Emotions

Normally, if a guy the size of Glen “Big Baby” Davis got right in my face and started screaming, I’d probably have a heart attack. But when “Baby” appears in excited, larger-than-life glory on the JumboTron at a Boston Celtics home game to rally the crowd, fans don’t get scared: they get loud.

On Wednesday night, J and I watched Big Baby and the rest of the white-hot Celtics stomp the Phoenix Suns at the last home game we have tickets for this season. What I love about attending basketball or other sports events (as I’ve argued before) is the way the emotions of the game completely erase whatever worries or concerns I bring with me to the arena. Watching sports on TV can be similarly cathartic, but there’s something about being in an enormous arena with a sellout crowd of other rabid fans that works wonders for one’s stress levels. It’s possible, I’ve learned, to read student papers while watching televised sports; Stan Lombardo, for instance, once admitted that he worked on his translations of the Iliad and Odyssey while watching college basketball on TV. But grading papers or translating Greek classics just isn’t feasible if you’re actually at a basketball game. If you’re actually attending a professional or college basketball game, it would give a whole new meaning of March Madness even to try to squeeze in some work.

The ancient Greeks, of course, were the first to argue that drama is cathartic, and the ancient Greeks were equally fond of sports: they are, after all, the inventors of the collective catharsis we call the Olympics. I suppose on Wednesday night I could have set down my grading pen in order to watch a play…but they typically don’t let you scream, swear, and stomp your feet at plays. Drama can be psychologically cathartic because you become subsumed in the emotions of others: watching Medea poised to kill her children, for instance, you might re-visit every hellish break-up or desire for revenge you’ve ever experienced. But both watching and (especially) reading plays is essentially a quietly passive act: the actors on the stage or the characters on the page are doing something, but you as viewer or reader are “active” only in your own engaged mind.

For me, the most powerful emotions involve motion. When I have something troubling on my mind, I could sit down and try to mental it out…or I could go for a brisk walk and let my feet do my thinking. If watching a film or play offers emotional release by taking you out of yourself long enough to empathize with the concerns of fictitious characters, sporting events are equally cathartic with the added benefit of bodily involvement. No, can’t “participate” in an NBA game by jumping from your seat and taking to the hardwood to give the home team a hand…but the players, coaches, referees, and even arena security guards don’t expect you to spend the entire game completely silent and spellbound in your seats.

At least one of my sisters and several of my friends who are big-time film buffs would probably be dismayed to hear me admit it, but I actually have a difficult time sitting still for even the most engrossing movie: even my Zen school, with its emphasis on sitting meditation, expects practitioners to remain seated for only about thirty minutes at a stretch before getting everyone up for walking meditation. Does it come as a surprise, then, that I actually prefer walking to sitting meditation, and that my favorite form of collective catharsis isn’t sniffling through a sad movie but leaping to my feet to scream over a great play or swear over a bad call?

In other words, when none other than Kevin Garnett appears on the Celtics JumboTron exhorting fans to GET ON YOUR FEET…

…I am very grateful to comply. Yes, sir!

This is my day-late contribution to this week’s Photo Friday theme, Emotions. I shot the JumboTron images of Glen Davis and Kevin Garnett at the Celtics vs. Pistons game on March 5; the rest of today’s images come from Wednesday night’s game against the Phoenix Suns.

 

Up against it

There’s no dramatic reason why I haven’t been posting much lately; it’s just that Real Life has been playing me close and in my face.

Today J and I went to see the Boston Celtics play the San Antonio Spurs: my much-anticipated birthday present. One thing I enjoy about watching sports is the way a good game takes you completely outside yourself. For four full quarters, you concentrate every speck of attention on a handful of guys trying to shoot an orange ball through a round hoop. For the duration of the game, you aren’t thinking about the housework, unanswered emails, or unwritten blog-posts you left at home; instead, you and an entire arena of strangers are united in one single endeavor: Us Against Them.

In real life, both of my semesters are in full swing, so I have the usual papers to read, classes to prepare, and a recommendation or two to write. J’s been sick with the cold I almost avoided, and my apartment back in Keene is in dire need of a thorough cleaning. I remembered yesterday that it was my nephew’s birthday: too late (again) to get a card and check to him on time. None of these things are exceptional: all of them are simply Real Life getting in my face and playing my “game” for all it’s worth. Am I up for the challenge?

It’s easy enough to shoot an orange ball through a round hoop when no one’s guarding you, but how’s your game when you have a defender in your face talking trash? Life, it seems, is no different. I could keep up with my classes at Keene State if I didn’t teach online, and I could keep an immaculate apartment in Keene if I didn’t spend weekends with J in Newton. If I didn’t teach, I’d have have time to mail birthday cards, and if I didn’t go to basketball games, I’d have time to blog.

But how less rich, nuanced, and diverse would my life be if I eliminated any one of these endeavors? If I didn’t teach, have relationships, and go to basketball games, what would I write about? Watching any player–even a superstar–shooting hoops on an empty court is far more boring than watching a close game between well-matched opponents; it’s the competition and challenge that add both suspense and savor. If I weren’t double-teamed by the players called Time and Real Life, how boring would it be to watch me shoot metaphoric hoops alone and unguarded?

In today’s big game against the defending NBA champions, the Celtics relied heavily on their bench players as starters Kevin Garnett and Kendrick Perkins are both out with injuries. In post-game coverage, Celtics coach Doc Rivers explained how he prepared Boston rookie Glen “Big Baby” Davis for his match-up with veteran Spurs superstar Tim Duncan. “We had to remind him that Duncan is really good,” Rivers noted. “What we told Glen was, ‘He’s taller than you. You’re heavier than him. You’re not going to grow today.’” Instead of focusing on Duncan’s extra inches, Doc Rivers suggested, Davis should focus on his strengths as a wide-body: “[B]ecause you have a low center of gravity, get into his legs and try to push him off the block. You can’t get frustrated.’”

Everyone occasionally needs a good coach to set them straight, and Doc Rivers is as good as they come. As much as I’d like to school those double-teaming defenders called Time and Real Life, I’m not going to grow any extra inches, an extra brain, or an extra grading eye today or any other day. Instead, I come back to my center of gravity, settle into my own legs, and try to push Time off the block. Given the multiple demands of Real Life, I can’t get frustrated.

Click here for a handful of mostly blurry photos from today’s game, including several showing Red Sox first baseman Kevin Youkilis watching court-side as the Celtics beat the Spurs 98 - 90.

 

Over Red’s dead body

The Boston Celtics were the last team in the NBA to get cheerleaders (pardon me, “dancers”) because Celtics icon Red Auerbach thought pretty pompom girls were a distraction from the game. According to one account, Red’s exact response to the question of when the C’s would get cheerleaders was “over my dead body”; in another, Red claimed the Celtics organization was “just waiting for me to die so they can get cheerleaders.”

Well, Red’s dead, they named the TD Banknorth Garden’s parquet floor after him, and now there are dancers striking poses over Red Auerbach’s signature. Rest in peace, Red. As for me, I was watching the score during a pivotal fourth quarter time-out last night, not the scantily clad women rolling around on Red’s floor.

Click here for a photo-set of images from last night’s loss to the Detroit Pistons. Personally, I think those sexy Celtics girls jinxed the game when they danced onto the floor at the exact moment the Pistons stole the Celtics’ lead and never gave it back. Call me old-school, but I believe basketball is about fundamentals, not fancy, ass-shaking frills.