I always stay tuned to Arizona sports radio, even though I have been living in Ohio for more than three and a half years. I don’t think I will ever love Ohio teams more than Arizona teams, and if it ever does happen I tell people I will probably be 66 (since I spent the first 33 years of my life in Arizona). Of course who’s to say where I will be living in thirty (or three) years!
This week, the Arizona Cardinals made a huge trade that even someone who isn’t a huge sports fan would be excited about. They traded for one of the two or three best wide receivers in football without giving up more than a draft pick and a player they were trying to get rid of anyway. I started getting texts from a friend. Suddenly, the mood on the radio picked up. Then it picked up some more. In the Twitter universe, people couldn’t believe what had happened.
In a time when everyone is so uptight (and for pretty good reason), sometimes it’s easy to forget the joy in just having a little bit of fun and cutting loose. I spent hours talking about football, listening to football, and reading stories about football. It was great. I know there was more important news floating around, but maybe in that moment it was just as important to not listen to the important stuff.
I read a book by a former NFL player recently (and wrote a rather scathing review about it that I recently took down from my blog). He made fun of watching sports on television. He essentially implied that if you want to reach your goals, you can’t sit on the sideline and eat a bag of chips and watch the game. Instead, you have to be constantly striving to improve. You don’t have time to be a fan.
I do understand what he was getting at, and I myself would argue that there is way too much sitting around and watching television going on in this world. The part I think he took too far is the idea that you have to always be working. You have to always be struggling. You have to wake up early in the morning every morning. Do you like music or television while you run? Stop it! Focus on your run.
What are we doing to ourselves?
I hope people are staying in touch with the news regarding all the different issues going on regarding the pandemic. I think most of the people I know are staying informed. However, what’s past “informed”? Is there such a thing as being overinformed? Does too much information create panic and hysteria? Is the flood of information why we have grocery stores without toilet paper? Can we just lay off the focus for a little while?!?!
I, for one, was super excited to find out that in lieu of March Madness (which has been a part of my sports-watching tradition since before I could say Fairleigh Dickinson), they are airing classic tournament games on CBS. I even found out that my alma mater’s 1997 championship is even going to be on next weekend! I know it isn’t much, but sometimes we don’t need much. Even just a few minutes or a few hours away from the hysteria is enough to recharge.
So thank you, Arizona Cardinals, for stealing DeAndre Hopkins. Thank you, sports media people, for covering the story and getting excited. I needed that. Even though sports news isn’t “important,” it’s important to not be important sometimes.