Culture of the Game

For anyone who has ever played a sport and really loved it for everything it offered, its culture, its glory, its heart-break, would know that personal accomplishments, although sometimes not remembered or even acknowledged by anyone, stay firm in our own memories as being some of the most important nostalgic flashbacks in our lives. This is the case when relating to Chuck Klosterman's article referring to a 1980s Juco basketball tournament in North Dakota between two schools most people in America have and never will hear of. The highlight of the story details an all-Native American team who were severely outmatched in not only size, but athleticism, and not to mention physical and literal numbers. Towards the end of the game, they were forced to finish with 3, thats right, 3 players against 5. Astonishingly they came out with a 3-point victory over their competitors who ironically associate the loss with not knowing how to defend 3 players. One would assume a 2-man advantage would be all you need to facilitate and easy win, however this was clearly not the case. In interviews with players from the winning team over 2 decades later, many of them still relish in the glory of that miraculous win and even throw in a few arbitrary facts about their personal stats from that game or season, just to re-live the good ole days.

Even in two different sports, the same philosophies exist in terms of nostalgic glory when looking back at athletic accomplishments. In James Wright's poem, Autumn Begins in Martins Ferry, Ohio, he outlines the very real historical culture related to high school football in america, and specifically in Ohio. He speaks of the fathers gloating over their sons play on the field, making them into figurative sporting heroes, the spectators 'nursing' beers in the crowd, and the boys 'galloping terribly against each others bodies'.

These two very different stories, one describing a 3-man team of natives beating an opponent expected to rout them, and a poem, glorifying the start of high school football season have one thing in common. One must observe the aspect of the culture and nostalgia involved in not just these two sports, but in all sports as a whole. No matter how big or small the accomplishment, when playing a sport you truly love, even the smallest of achievements are forever embedded in our memories. In both these stories examples of nostalgia exist when looking at the memories the native players have of their game in the 1980s which will never be remembered by anyone except those who played in the game, or the glory on the gridiron in which these fathers of high school stars will forever gloat on behalf of the accomplishments they experienced vicariously through their offspring. Even for myself, an ideal fool for the game of football who in my own days of playing in high school never had any note-worthy accomplishments to be remembered by history. However to me, my lonely single career varsity interception, or my one blocked kick that game against Shore Regional, or that time I scored my first touchdown in the back corner of the end zone on a flag route, and then of course my favorite nostalgic memory of all during my last ever high school football game, scoring two of my final three career touchdowns, one on a pass and the other on a reverse hand-off will stand as the accomplishments I had on the football field. However small in comparison, they define everything I personally achieved playing the game I loved, and will be forever engraved in my memory. Just like the natives who to themselves, accomplished something iconic, but to everyone else a unknown fact, and to the fathers of those boys on the football field.

When writing an essay of my own relating to nostalgia and sports, the one thing I can truly take away from James Wright's vision of the start of high school football season, is the vivid details of change when the season comes around and about how almost everyone drops what they're doing to be apart of the culture. To me these memories are not so distant, for as I write this now I am but a year removed from these feelings. However when reading this poem I am instantly taken back to the beginning of September and the crisp fall nights in New Jersey when taking the field to face our opponents. This type of writing that can generate so much nostalgia, especially for sports, is the kind I would use when writing about the love and culture of a game.