People often ask, “oh you have worked in sports all your life, what teams do you root for?” While I do care about some teams much more than some others…and honestly don’t really “hate” any team…and have worked for so many organizations considered rivals (Fordham and Iona, the Jets and the Giants, NWSL and MLS etc etc) the “rooting” part is different for me.
However what I do say is that this is a business of personalities who are much like everyone else, only their superpower is very public, unlike a teacher, or a doctor, or a police officer or an accountant. We know what they can do, and we see them do their jobs for better or worse almost any time and on any device we choose, and with that work revelation comes a well of emotion that doesn’t normally come when you see your dry cleaner.
It’s why I say I root for people.
That rooting came front and center in very emotional ways in the past 48 hours with the passing of Nick Mangold, a heartfelt revelation by Jets QB Justin Fields (you can watch it here), and the late night World Series heroics of Freddie Freeman. All may be larger than life individuals in their area of expertise, but all chose at some point to reveal a side that made them very human, and it is that type of interaction which I have been lucky enough to have over the years with literally hundreds of individuals, from coaches to athletes to musicians to actors to teachers and on and on, that gives me a “rooting” interest in people.
There has been much written about the firing of college football coaches recently for example. When I hear of such things on any level, my thoughts are always not of the buy out, but of the buy in that their staffs, their families, had made, and what that loss off the field will mean for all of them. Disruption, ridicule, memes and the like. While it may be fun to buy into all the trolling and pile on, and we are all guilty of it time and again, it’s more fun to learn of these people just as they are, people, and have some empathy for them.
Getting back to Freddie Freeman, a guy who I root for, not because of his baseball success but because of his family. If you have never seen the ESPN special on his family, find it, it is worth your time, and it may reframe how you think about people.
When you learn curiously, it’s just harder to hate. That goes not just for those in the limelight, but for all of us.
Also, if you root for people more than teams, think about how much less important winning or rooting for just one group of individuals is. It makes the whole experience more enjoyable, and a little less bitter when things don’t go your team’s way, at least for the longer run.
Collect people, they make the stories even better.
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