Losing

Joe Kapp, with the B.C. Lions

   I became a football fan while living in North Vancouver, as a child. I would have been nine or so and, being a North Van resident, was a fan of the B.C. Lions. Soccer had always been the preferred schoolyard game but then, by Grade 5 or so, the boys all turned to football. At the time, the B.C. Lions were one of the best teams in the CFL and it was not hard to be a rabid fan.
   Their quarterback at the time was a guy named Joe Kapp. He led them to the Grey Cup game in 1963 but they lost to the Hamilton Ti-Cats. The following year, he led them once again to the Grey Cup  game and this time they were victorious, against the same Ti-Cats. At the time I remember living or dying around the results of these games and felt hugely vindicated when they won. A couple of years later, however, Kapp left the Lions and headed south, for the NFL.

Fran Tarkenton, of the Vikings

   And my heart kind of went with him. He joined the Minnesota Vikings and I quickly became a huge fan of theirs. Under his leadership they quickly progressed from being a new franchise to becoming one of the powerhouses in the league. I watched this progression with just a little bit of awe as I was now aligned with a sports winner. At this time, the NFL was beginning to make huge inroads as far as media coverage went (although nothing to compared to what goes on these days) and much was made of glamourizing sports teams and this was what I was witness to with the Vikings. There was a show called NFL Action which came on weekly and was a somewhat documentary-style show, showing highlights from the week's action and doing special profiles. It seemed to me at the time that much of what I saw on this show centred on the Vikings. The whole tone of the show, from the ominous timbre of its narrator, John Facenda, and the rousing background music seemed to dramatize and glorify the subject matter. This had the effect of elevating the importance of the games and, indeed, almost mysticized them in my young and impressionable mind.
   So, over the late sixties, my Vikings marched on and eventually found themselves playing in Super Bowl IV, against the Kansas City Chiefs. I was never so sure that a team would win a game as I was the Vikings that day. Nothing I'd seen or heard over the previous couple of years had convinced me that Minnesota was anything other than a sure thing to win that game--all the hype, all the drama, all the glorification of them.

Minnesota Vikings defence

   They lost, convincingly. I was in a state of shock, to put it mildly. I threw a temper tantrum of mild proportions. I honestly felt completely lost and despondent simply because they had not won the big game. It actually took me a couple of days to fully get over it.
   This had a profound effect on me. In analyzing it in later years, I realized that what I had done was invest every little bit of self-worth I had solely on the outcome of one sporting event. It didn't seem to matter what kind of marks I was getting in school, what my circle of friends was like, or how I was regarded in the community--my team had lost and I was now worthless!
   I became then, and am still, a wary sports fan. I no longer invest myself totally with one team or another. My favourite hockey team, the Boston Bruins, recently won the Stanley Cup. Throughout the long playoff run preceding this, I enjoyed their success from a distance, never getting my hopes up too high. Even as they ended up playing in a seventh game for the Cup, I prepared myself for a loss and even the possible good that might come from it. As it turned out, we won! And because of this I was quietly happy and somewhat self-satisfied but the outcome of the game had absolutely no bearing on my self-worth. And nor should it!