For The Joy Of The Game

The Super Bowl is upcoming. I’ll watch. Usually I tune in as much for the commercials as for the game itself. I like football, but ordinarily the pro teams I cheer for (the Panthers and the Giants) long before the Super Bowl have begun to sing their annual refrain, Wait Till Next Year. In fact, too often they begin singing that song about mid-season.

Historically, I’ve been more of a college than a pro football fan. In college, it was more about school spirit than about income. Sadly, that no longer seems to be the case. Whatever happened to “amateur athletics”? And, to loyalty to one’s school? Some argue, “Student athletes deserve a cut of what the school makes off them.” I get that. They make a good point. But, others respond that student athletes are getting a free education to play their sport, and often that amounts to $100 grand or more a year. So, in that sense, there is compensation. Either way, once big money gets involved then “loyalty to one’s school” is too easily replaced by “loyalty to the highest bidder.” Some elite college athletes are now choosing to remain in school rather than turn pro because they can make more money by doing so. So, there’s this thing called “the portal” allowing college athletes to choose every year where they will play the next season (i.e., who will pay them the highest salary to do so). When you enter the portal, you cease playing for your current team. That, alongside the expanded playoffs, has relegated traditional holiday football bowls to the status of “Who cares?” Aside from the playoffs, most bowls don’t matter anymore because by the time you get there, you’ve lost so many key players that your team is no longer competitive.

For those readers who couldn’t care less about football (acknowledging that most of them have quit reading by this point), what does any of this have to do with you? Maybe just this: Aren’t there times when we should do something just for the pure joy of it? And in life, isn’t that often a kind of compensation? A great deal of peace and satisfaction is compromised by the question, “What’s in it for me?” So off we go in search of fame or fortune, position or power, and miss the beauties and blessings of just existing one day at a time. I read a book not long ago written by a man who spent most of his baseball career in the Minor Leagues. He wrote of traveling in buses that sometimes broke down between ballparks, of being housed on the road in cheap motels, of living in a spare bedroom in a fan’s house in the town where his team was located, and of small paychecks that barely covered his expenses during the season (leaving him with the challenge of finding an employer who would give him a six-month job the rest of the year). It was a difficult and demanding life. But, he said that for him it was all worth it because at that level he played “for the joy of the game.” There is a lesson to be learned from what he wrote: We will not always be treated fairly in life. We will not always receive our due. But, that does not mean we should miss “the joy of the game.”

Loving does not always mean that we will be loved in return. Even so, do not miss the joy of loving. Making life better for others does not always mean that others will serve our needs. Even so, do not miss the joy of serving. Observing nature does not mean that Mother Nature will always reward us with a storm-free existence. Even so, as the late Mac Davis used to sing, do not miss the joy of stopping to smell the roses along the way. Doing good simply for goodness’ sake is its own reward. It tends to make our lives good (happy, fulfilled) in the process. And that may be the best compensation of all.

Football. Baseball. I should’ve worked a basketball or golf story in, I suppose. You who are not sports fans are probably thanking me for refraining. More likely, you quit reading three paragraphs ago. In that case, then I guess I’ve just been writing all this for the pure joy of writing. I’m okay with that.