Going to the Game Should be Good for Your Soul

Beauty is not the goal of competitive sports, but high-level sports are a prime venue for the expression of human beauty. The relation is roughly that of courage to war.

The human beauty we’re talking about here is beauty of a particular type; it might be called kinetic beauty. Its power and appeal are universal. It has nothing to do with sex or cultural norms. What it seems to have to do with, really, is human beings’ reconciliation with the fact of having a body.

From David Foster Wallace’s “Federer as Religious Experience”

Put me down with that, too. I go to games to watch, listen, laugh, gossip, see, solve world problems, gam, jump, and just to play. I’m a fan fanboi – so long as there is sustained drama.

There might be only one thing I can vibe on with Jerry York: “There’s got to be some more creativity to it.” With the splash of energy we’ll get tonight and during the weekend – around the court and near the ice – let’s raise the bar on the fan experience. Everyone is trying to be creative, I say we go one up and be fittingly eccentric.

As fans, it’s time to step up the game. Personally, I need some new and memorable drama from the stands.  The old chants are starting to feel too predictable.  Time to take them over the top to be a bit more fantastic, outlandish (but clean), tantalizing, unusual, less-obvious, and muse-ical?

Let’s not forget about the impulse and the art that’s part of the participatory nature of a being crowded in a large space.

I’m looking to hit a game and hear new refrains from the chorus of new ideas. I’m searching for deep spontaneity on the chant and soulful humor in the trash-talk.  Can we kick it?

Go Terriers!