Celebrating with my sports 'family'

This is a special Sunday morning — the Seahawks are in the playoffs.

Excited about the game, I wake at 4 a.m. and lay in bed wondering. I wonder if the Vikings will bring the same team to the game the Seahawks defeated on Dec. 6, a 38-7 victory for the Hawks. I wonder how five degrees below zero will affect the hands or Russell Wilson and I wonder if the dogs have chewed through the television cable-line again.

I lay in bed knowing if I decide to get up, the dogs in their kennel will demand I release them for an outside potty break then breakfast, waking my wife. I choose to stay prone. The next two hours tossing then turning in bed allow more time to think.

I focus on my Seahawk golf shirt and believe I need to wear my white, mock-turtleneck under the golf shirt ensuring the “right” look for the game. I focus my attention on my Seahawk socks then wonder if wearing my logo gloves given to me by a student at my school might be too much?

Sleep eludes me as I release the Labs, walk to the kitchen and prepare breakfast for the pups. My tummy knots as I think of last year’s Super Bowl, where the Hawks lost the game in the last seconds to the New England Patriots. In a questionable pass to an unwanted and possibly undedicated receiver, Ricardo Lockette — who caught just 18 passes previously in his professional career — did not fight for the reception, which was intercepted by the Patriots’ Malcolm Butler.

Celebrating Lockette’s highly productive second year in the NFL, I mentally challenge the Patriots to join the Seahawks in the Super Bowl again this year. They will not have a chance!

Expecting visitors, I wash the few dishes in the sink, light a candle in my man-cave to eliminate the musty odor of pistachios and popcorn then turn on the pregame.

Realizing the last five hours of my life is consumed by a game of people I do not know — played by young millionaires, a thousand miles from my home — starts to eat at my soul.

Why is this game important to me? Why do I become emotionally and mentally attached to a group of young men playing football when I can play the same game with friends and receive the benefit of fitness and comradery? Why do I buy team swag and display it for all to see my support for this group of rich young men?

The answer is not with the game but with the player. Professional sports offer every person the opportunity to be coach, player, referee and fan. Sharing with others the sadness of a loss and joy of a victory creates a community of like-mindedness — a family of supporters.

This family can talk of statistics, player trades, missed calls and clock management in a way foreign to most listeners. This family of sports enthusiasts creates a linguistic malaise of nonsensical gibberish and smile at the unknowing. Sport-lovers create community.

Accepting that I love the Seahawks because others love the Seahawks is enough for me. Friends, cheering, supporting each other and great food ritualize the competition on the flat-screen in my man-cave. We have a common language, a common goal and common focus — that the Seahawks beat the Vikings on this icy January morning.

Laces in, wide-left the football flies as Blair Walsh misses the 27-yard field goal to lose the game for the Vikings. My man-cave erupts in screams and celebration as the Seahawks advance to the second game of the playoffs. Walsh tearfully declares, “I didn’t come through for the Vikings.”

As we laugh, the Vikings cry. Is it possible that this game means more to the players than the spectators? Might each player on each team have the same comradery, enthusiasm and zest for winning than the spectators watching their sport? Might they also have a sense of family? Might the money earned by the player mean less to each player than the drive to win?

Sports are funny things. People have killed over their sport and people who oppose their team. People have also been drawn together by their connection to a team and the support for the success or failure of that team — think the Philadelphia Phillies.

I suggest professional sports offer a sociologically positive need for many Americans to satisfy a primeval need to feel alive. As the lion, jaguar and bear fight a slave in the ancient Roman coliseum, professional sports offer the viewer a replication of the battle fought to the death in 80 AD.

The viewer watches combatants struggle, outthink and outwork the enemy to survive the struggle.

The audience cheers the victor, celebrates the win as if the battle is fought by oneself, then degrades the loser as less-than.

The victor high-fives others dressed as they while the loser hugs their sports family in condolence. Both team supporters become closer in the transaction and prepare for another fight.

“Wait til’ next year. We’ll be back!”