The Next Game

2-13-89

Perspective:

The Next Game

It was a pretty good week for Cobber sports. Sort of. The Lady Cobber basketball team, picking up four road wins, went to 20-2 and held their No. 2 national ranking. And the women's indoor track team won a meet in St. Paul.

But the hockey and men's basketball teams saw their playoff hopes slip away. For them, the orderly life of preparing for the next game will be over in a week. There are dozens of healthy, and not-so-healthy, reasons why people are attracted to participation on organized team sports. Here's one. During the season the ongoing anticipation of preparing for the next game provides a rhythm to life that is hard to duplicate in other spheres of activity. When the game comes there will be a final score and a winner and a loser. And then there will be the next game to get ready for. There is clarity there. And order. And a stunning degree of objective reality, mixed with hope, to deal with.

When you ask your banker or teacher or insurance agent or mother how things are going you generally have to take it on faith that their subjective assessment is accurate.

When you ask a coach or player how things are going you get a number first, like 20-2 or 10-10 or 3-18. Then you get a little context for that number. But the number is most of the answer.

All the drama, tension and work that went into creating that number is hard for anyone outside the team to fully appreciate. But, for those inside the team, that number was built one-game-at-a-time. And the process of building that number involves a cycle of preparation- anxiety-hope-game time-final score-preparation- anxiety... until the season ends.

It is an intoxicating cycle. It tempts us to put off all else until that last game breaks the cycle. It provides the rhythm to our weeks and regular measurement of our performance. And, regardless of what happened in the last game, the next game quickly grips our attention. It might be a chance for redemption. It might be a test of progress. But it always grips us.

When we eat and sleep is dependent upon the next game. All appointments and obligations not related to the next game tend to be seen as distractions. "After the next game," or "After the season," are phrases that flow from our lips with predictable ease.

Other areas of endeavor, of course, also lure people into an all-consuming focus, usually to the detriment of their family, health and broader perspective. But, whether that endeavor is business or raising children or church work, the non-sports world is almost always more amorphous. It's hard to tell from day to day just how you are doing. There are too many subtleties and nuances in "real life" to confidently say you are having a championship year.

But in sports you can be 20-2, or fifth in the nation in scoring, or, maybe, just averaging 2 points per game. You may or may not be having a successful year but you certainly have a concrete way of measuring how you are doing. Like the lure of simplistic answers to the world's complex problems, the attraction some feel to sport is in it's clarity, it's order.

Those who get caught up in a season can easily be judged escapists. But the same can be said of the workaholic or the perpetual volunteer or anyone else whose life becomes captive to a tightly focused process. For those whose season is coming to an end this week there awaits the outside of the cocoon they have lived in since October. For those who have earned an extension of the season through playoffs there is the chance to live a while longer in the cocoon.

I'll get the leak in the roof fixed after the season. The Lady Cobbers look to be in the playoffs.

These pages are maintained by Jerry Pyle pyle@cord.edu. These articles are copyrighted © and may not be published or reproduced without the express permission of Jerry Pyle.

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