Lame Sports

My Unhealthy Obsession

By Ross Weingarten

I love Duke basketball. I love it so much, that when they are playing a game, everything else takes a backseat. My family, friends, work, they all come second when my beloved Blue Devils are playing. And when they play a big rival, like Maryland or UNC? Forget it. The world might as well stop spinning.

Let me just say that I know how irrational my obsession with Duke is. I did not attend the school, nor did any of my immediate family. I am not from North Carolina, but rather from Washington, D.C., where the Maryland Terrapins are everyone’s favorite college team. There is no rational reason why I should like the Duke Blue Devils, the team everyone loves to hate, but I do.

I want to take you back. I was five years old, and Duke was playing UNLV in the NCAA Championship game. You know when people ask you what your first memory is? This is mine. The game pitted the preppy Blue Devils from the ritzy, east coast private school versus the bad-boy Runnin’ Rebels, led by coach/criminal Jerry Tarkanian, from Sin City, Las Vegas. I remember watching the beginning of the game with my father, a huge basketball fan, and as he explained to me what was going on, my love affair began. Duke played a beautiful brand of basketball. They passed, they cut, they all had beautiful jump shots. It was five players working together to beat the much more athletic UNLV team, and that’s exactly what they did. Except that they didn’t. Final score: UNLV 103, Duke, 73.

It didn’t matter, I had found my first love. The next two years were pure bliss, with Mike Krzyzewski, known worldwide as Coach K or “that guy from the American Express commercials” led Duke to back-to-back championships behind stars Christian Laettner, Bobby Hurley and Grant Hill. Duke played hard. They played with a swagger. They knew they were going to win. For a kid learning to play and love basketball, it was a perfect match.

Two brief stories about how much I hate to see Duke lose. In 1993, when I was eight years old, I was on vacation with my family in Florida. While my parents, grandparents, aunts and uncles lounged by the pool or played cards, I sat two inches from the television, on the brink of tears as I watched a young point guard from Cal Berkeley named Jason Kidd beat the Blue Devils in the NCAA tournament. According to family legend, later that day I threw a chair at my grandmother. Six years later, my father took my to my first Final Four in Tampa, Florida. That Duke team was loaded, with Elton Brand, Trajan Langdon, William Avery and Corey Maggette all to be selected in the first 14 picks of the NBA Draft the next year. Entering the championship game, they were 37-1, and a sure bet to win it all. Again, heartbreak for me as UConn, with star guard Richard Hamilton, beat Duke 77-74. During the four-hour car ride from Tampa back to Boca Raton, where my grandparents lived, I literally did not say a word. My father thought I was borderline suicidal.

So why tell you about my obsession with Duke basketball? To point out how preposterous our society’s obsession with sports really is. I am now a young professional, with a career to worry about, bills to pay, and a social life to maintain. My basketball career is long over, so no longer can I rationalize watching Duke games as “trying to pick up tips for when I play.” Yet I still watch religiously. Anyone else that loves a team, whether it’s a college or pro team, basketball, baseball, football or any other sport, will tell you the same. Life gets put on hold when our boys (or girls) take the court (or field). Sports can take on a spiritual significance. When the Red Sox won their first World Series in 2004, after an 86-year drought, fans across New England visited the graves of their fathers and grandfathers to tell them they could now rest in peace. For Notre Dame football fans around the country, there is no question that many victories have been because of divine intervention, if you believe Touchdown Jesus is divine.

With all that is wrong in the world, millions of Americans still eat, sleep and breathe sports. There is poverty around the world, disease kills millions and a generation of militant Muslims wants to end our way of life. Why, then, do we care so much about things as meaningless as games? Perhaps it is precisely because there is so much to worry about in our world that we love sports. They are our release, an oasis for our mind, and the only time when all we have to worry about is how many points our favorite player has scored, or who’s coming to bat in the ninth inning. Still, it seems a bit insane to focus so much time and energy when our efforts could be used to fix so much that is wrong around the globe. Think I am preaching? A little, but first and foremost, I am scolding myself. Another Duke basketball season kicks off in four days, and I have a lot to do to get ready.

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