Seahawks traded their QB Russell Wilson to the Broncos in the preseason. NFL capitalized on this by scheduling the first season game for the Hawks and the Broncos to be against each other at Seattle. The only NFL game this first Monday night 9/12. I do not know the size of the online viewership but I am positive the advertisers were over the moon.
This isn’t a post about the game. It’s about all the break up, the emotions that surfaced, what being a fan means. Let’s start with the last point.
Being called a “fair weather” fan is an insult, that one doesn’t stick with one’s sports team through thick or thin. The 12’s (i.e. Seahawks fans) are well known for generating a noise level in the stadium that reached 98 decibels! This disrupts the opposing team as evidenced by the number of false starts by the Broncos! Great work 12’s!
But is jeering and boo-ing Russ really desirable fan behavior to be emulated? Holding up signs that mock him? I wonder whether in doing such, we un-chain that beast within that seeks to ‘slap’ others. More charitably, perhaps it’s a cathartic release of jilted loyalties. However, such loyalties may be fragile if they are based on the player winning (i.e. “performing”) for them. In other words, the relationship is based on what the player does, not who the player is.
Post hand comments by ex-team mates do reveal the reality of friendship or not, that existed. Some snide comments reveal the envy that was so carefully hidden when they were playing together. The real friends, the loyal friends, who battled him on the field last night had kinder words, perhaps by saying nothing. Football is a business, and sometimes friends have to compete against each other in this business.
What relevant insights are there for Life?
(1) Some who play on your side will only be too willing to turn on you when you part ways.
(2) Some “feel good” actions can burnish the “badness of being.” This is a slippery slope.
(3) It’s tempting to exchange blow for blow, and thus, quickly sink to the other’s level. Do I really want that?
(4) Are any of my current relationships based more on what the other does?
As with anything in Life, it all flows from one to another. Any partition we attempt to put up never fully contains our actions, our emotions, our various personas.
Journey Within 