BASKETBALL WARS

There's something about sports I just don't get. So there we are last week at the Blazer/Jazz game in Portland . . . me and Stephen, Grace and Gloria, and two of Gloria's friends, because this was her 10th birthday celebration. Now I'm excited to be there, looking forward to the live game, prepared to whoop it up for the home boys. I like basketball. I like the Blazers. We moved to Portland during the legendary Rick Adelman days, when the Trailblazer dream team was firing up the court, led by Clyde Drexler and Terry Porter and other great players, many of whom were actually our neighbors on Bull Mountain. Those were days of Blazer mania and it was fun to join in; it was fun to win.

Well, we were doing anything but winning last week against the Jazz, who were running slick, beautiful plays, while the Blazers seemed not to know one defensive move. It didn't make for a great game, at least not for an arena full of Blazer fans. But here's the thing that bugged me: as the game went on (badly, admittedly) people got more and more worked up about what seemed such silly things. Referee calls that didn't help our losing cause, for instance. Once the entire Rose Garden booed loudly for five nonstop minutes over a ref's call. Now I know refs make bad calls sometimes, but what's the point of pouring all that negative energy out onto our own home court? I don't get that.

At another point in the game, our whole section, led by one vociferous, obnoxious fan just behind us, repeatedly chanted, "Utah sucks! Utah sucks!" I mean, that's just plain rude. It's a game, for heaven's sake, not a war.

Or maybe it is a war. I've often thought that sports is a substitute for war, especially for a generation that hasn't really experienced a massive military draft, as in World War II or even Vietnam. I guess I don't really get war, either. I recognize that there are certainly times when military action is required to defeat evil or protect freedom, but so often, it just looks to me like power games, fueled by testosterone and greed.

My kids, separated by more than a century from the Civil War, are through-and-through Union supporters. And why not? Who can argue against national unity and anti-slavery? But it always annoys me when they so matter-of-factly assume their position is superior. Because it was my ancestors--and theirs--that fought for the Confederacy, not because we were landed slave-holders trying to protect our monetary interests, but simply because those boys in blue were our own home boys. We all root for the home team.

In the temple and elsewhere, we often pray for those who are serving in our military.
And so we should. But I always whisper a prayer for the "enemy" soldiers, too. I may not agree with their position or their tactics; I may hope they lose, but every one of them has a mother and a father who worries over them, maybe a spouse and kids who pray that they will come home to them, just as we hope and pray for the safe return of our own. I pray that they all return home safely. I pray that they all just stay home and stop fighting.

So while I sit there in the Rose Garden hoping the Blazers will pull it together and beat the Jazz, I also applaud every remarkable play by the enemy team. It's a basketball game. It's supposed to be fun. I just don't get all the rabid rest of it.