By all accounts, things are not going well for football fans in the city of Miami these days.
The University of Miami is at 5-2, but that is very misleading. UM has lost to the two good teams they have played. Miami's wins have come against Florida A & M (a 4-3 1-AA team), Houston at 5-3 and the last three wins have come against North Carolina (1-6 with the lone win against Furman) and winless Duke and Florida International. The combined record of the teams Miami has beaten is 10-26. Not an inspiring number with a road game this week against a top 25 team. And I am sure everyone knows about the fight last week in the Miami/FIU game. Miami is suffering right now.
As bad as that is, the Miami Dolphins are having an even worse year. The Dolphins are 1-6 with losses to Green Bay and Houston and the lone victory came against the Titans. The Dolphins are a very bad team this year.
If you listen to sports radio down here, you would think the world is about to implode. People are unhappy and everyone has the solution to make things better.
That is why this story really struck me last night. About 8:00, NBC did a teaser about a bus crash on the turnpike with "details at 11:00." I didn't think much about it until the news came on and it turned out the bus was full of Dolphins fans from the west coast of the state on their way home from the game. None of the bus passengers were killed though a few had some serious injuries. I couldn't help but think that the accident puts the game in perspective. I'm sure more than a few of the people on the bus are the type of fans wanting to see coaches fired, players benched, etc. I can't help but wonder if the state of the Dolphins' season became at lot less important to at least one fan. The ability of a football game to make your day bad diminishes when you have to crawl out of a burning bus just to stay alive. Though I've always realized sports outcomes are not all that significant in the scheme of life, I still have to be reminded from time to time not to take it so seriously.
Thinking about the bus accident this way, I found it insenstive for the author of the story in the paper to say, "made a bad day much worse for some Miami Dolphins fans." But then I was shocked to see this quote from one of the passengers: "'We had a bad day -- a very bad day,' Hardman said." I would say you had a very bad day and the game had nothing to do with it. I consider myself a pretty passionate fan, but I guess I will never understand Dolphins fans.
This is all made even more interesting to me after the lesson at church last night. The preacher was talking about joy and repeated the often said truism that "no one can ruin your day unless you give them permission to." The same applies to sports. The outcome of a game can only ruin your day if you allow it to. But many fans refer to sports teams as "we." "We need to beat X this week." "We need to do a better job of getting the ball to Y." What "we" need to do is understand that "we" are not a part of them team. We don't practice. We don't play. We don't coach. We don't pay the salaries (directly at least). Of course, you must realize I am writing this while wearing my Cowboys jersey, getting ready to watch the Cowboys on Monday Night Football tonight. I am sure up to this point, Julie is screaming at the computer about how I watch games on TV. When I watch one of my teams, I like to talk to the TV, to put it mildly. I am guilty of the we mindsight from time to time. But, I think I do a pretty good job of not letting games get me down. I think I usually get over it pretty quickly. But I also realize that I can do a better job and not get down when my team loses. It is a joy to watch sports. As a fan, it should be entertainment to me and nothing more. I hope that the images of a bunch of people in Dolphins gear standing near a burned out bus frame will help me remember this.
P.S. The driver of the truck that caused the accident died. Please keep his family in your prayers.
No comments:
Post a Comment