I've Got Spirit, Yes I Do!

I am not a sports fan; I am a cheerleader. This is not easy to admit, but here's some evidence, scanned in from my high school yearbook:



I'm the first one, left front. (One of the yearbook boys liked me. And no wonder--I had no idea then, but just look at those cute legs! Also, since I'm coming clean here, note that I am wearing my class ring. Which I still have for some reason. Want it?)

Anyway, I like to play sports, and I can appreciate athletic grace and prowess, and sometimes I can admire strategy. I know most of the major sports' major rules, and am able to define terms like icing, offsides, traveling and holding, and can usually recognize them when they're happening on the field/ice/court/playing surface.

I really like the TV show Sport Science, because I love seeing the way the human body functions in terms of athletics.

I like the stories that get told through sporting events (not to be confused with the mini-dramas about the athletes Bob Costas narrates to fill time during the Olympics). I love the emotions on the players' faces.

What I like most about sports, though, is the community aspect of it all, and I think this is where my cheerleading history shows through: I love the home team. It embarrasses me to admit it now, but I was one of those dorky kids who always had school spirit. It only makes sense that I would grow up to have a hometown spirit too, I guess, and like the Penguins as representatives of the city more than I like hockey.

I used to fight the sports things entirely. My first feminist inklings showed up in high school, when the stupidrottenhorribleeviljackass of an athletic director wouldn't allow the cheerleading squad to be listed as a team (which would have given us money for things like uniforms) despite the fact that we competed. You know, against other schools. Like all the other teams did. Then, when we raised our own money and kicked ass at some competitions, that same AD wouldn't let us put our trophies in the trophy case (where the football, baseball, and wrestling trophies lived), because of his decree that cheerleading wasn't a sport (our trophies got stuffed into corners in some of the administrative offices). It didn't matter that we ran and lifted weights, or that many of us were great gymnasts or dancers (who had no dance or gymnastics teams to join, because our school didn't have them). All that mattered was that he decided we couldn't be called athletes.

I still really dislike that man.

Anyway, the whole thing was an exercise in being a second-class citizen, and I resented the reality that the football players (some of whom where very nice guys and good students, and some of whom were the kind who would happily punch girls) were clearly seen to be more important than I was.

I blamed football (because we were indeed an All About the Football school), and turned my back on it and the whole of organized sports for a long time. And then, a few years ago, I watched Friday Night Lights (the movie, not the TV show), and it all came rushing back. I missed it so much! I missed the drama and excitement, and the earnestness of sports--I had grown up with it, and it was a part of me, and I'd have to figure out how to reconcile the idiocy and the money and the bad behavior and the big business, because sports can be a lot of fun.

I suppose it helps that I have a son, and that he's become a sports fan and is growing into a capable little athlete, but I hold his sports experience (as a player, not a fan) as something different. I watch him play and practice soccer the way any parent watches her kid play a sport or dance in a recital or act in a play--it's not at all the same as paying to watch strangers or acquaintances play.

Anyway, the joy of sports for me is in the way the whole city gets behind the Steelers or the Pens, and even the struggling Pirates. I love seeing everyone out and about on a game day, grinning at one another as they take in each other's black and gold regalia. In Pittsburgh, at least, it doesn't matter if you're a big fat middle-aged mom or a skinny little geeky guy; all you have to do is sport the black and gold, and people are friendly--because for a while, anyway, we all have something in common: we're supporting the home team.

So while I can't quote you any stats on shots taken versus goals scored, I can tell you that I'm really pleased the Penguins have gone from looking to move to another city last fall to being four games away from bringing the Stanley cup back to Pittsburgh. And I believe that pride and pleasure is all that's required of me to be able to unabashed when I say Let's Go Pens!