Sports are designed to break your heart.
Think about it. In any sport, only one team can be the champion
at season’s end. On any given day, one team will win, and the
other will lose. And no one wins every game.
A perfect example of this was this past Saturday, when our UCLA
football team entered its game undefeated, only to be beaten by a
hapless Arizona team. Not just beaten. Soundly beaten, 52-14.
Bruin fans took this one hard. Even the skeptics had jumped on
the bandwagon.
And their hearts not only fell off the bandwagon, they were run
over as well.
I spent Saturday evening talking and chatting to several
depressed UCLA fans. Some yelled in disbelief. Others were sad.
Others were depressed. No one was having fun, as many say the
purpose of sports is.
But we still watch. To the non-sports fan, it makes no sense.
Why do we watch sports, they say? Why, if it just makes us
bitter?
Sure, attendance and ratings will suffer after the loss to
Arizona, but there will still be tens of thousands of fans at the
Rose Bowl this Saturday rooting for UCLA, and many more thousands
of viewers watching at home.
And this isn’t by any means a phenomenon unique to UCLA.
Some sports teams are known for losing. In the same sport, Navy has
lost to Notre Dame 41 consecutive times. In college basketball,
Savannah State did not win a single game last year, finishing the
year 0-28. In baseball, the Chicago Cubs haven’t won the
World Series since 1908.
Every team, at some point, goes on a really bad losing streak or
has a painful loss.
And many fans take loss really tough. Their mood changes. They
are genuinely down because of a sports team they merely watch for
“fun.”
Yet we will still continue to watch sports. The popularity of
sports is at an all-time high, with attendance figures and TV
ratings at their peak.
Millions of fans are getting their hearts broken on a regular
basis.
So why do we watch sports?
It’s simple.
We watch for the good times. And losing makes the good times all
that much sweeter.
Think of the other side of that painful loss on Saturday.
Those of you who were either die-hards or in a state of shock
and didn’t change the channel saw Arizona fans rush the field
after the game in jubilation. Arizona’s been bad for a long
time. The program literally had a team mutiny just two years ago.
As a rational sports fan, part of you had to feel good for that
team. It’s human.
Arizona fans were thrilled, in a state of pure bliss.
And that’s why we watch sports. Sports is one of the few
forms of entertainment that is unscripted. No one knows what is
going to happen. And anything can happen.
UCLA fans will get that bliss back should the Bruins finally
beat USC this year, after six years of losing to the Trojans,
watching them become a national powerhouse.
Should UCLA beat USC on Dec. 3, that would make every UCLA
fan’s dream, not only ending the losing streak to your
crosstown rival but knocking the Trojans off when they are the
two-time defending champions and on what would then be a legendary
32-game winning streak.
UCLA fans would feel kind of like what Kansas fans felt this
past Saturday, when their team beat Nebraska for the first time in
36 tries. Or how Texas fans felt a month ago when their team
knocked off Oklahoma after five straight years of losses to the
championship-caliber team.
Sports is all about hope. Sure, it might be easier for the fans
of some teams ““ USC fans, Yankee fans, Laker fans, Duke fans
and other fans of teams that are usually very good. But they
won’t get the same joy the rest of us get when something
unexpected happens.
Either way, everyone loves a winner. And those who have gone
through the losing too will appreciate the winners that much
more.
That’s why we watch sports. You never know what’s
going to happen. And when something truly great happens, it’s
one of the best feelings in the world.
Quiñonez is still holding out hope for his Montreal
Expos to win the World Series. E-mail him at
gquinonez@media.ucla.edu.