My dad was disappointed when the football or basketball teams from Brownsboro High School lost a playoff game. But after a couple of hours of rehashing the game, he would calm down before giving a stock response: “Oh well. I ain’t going to lose any sleep over it.”
That response was almost invariably followed by a sleepless night pacing the hallway.
He never attended Brownsboro, but his children did and he made it his own. I played football for a year in high school and my sister played basketball for four years.
But my dad didn’t limit his fandom to the games we were on the roster for. He attended more sporting events than most of the parents of children on the teams.
After his death, the school honored him by placing his name on a bleacher seat in the basketball gym.
Although far less intense than he was, I am still my father’s child. My classmates chose me as “Most School Spirited” all four years of high school. My wardrobe has been heavily shaded with the school colors from every university I attended.
I rarely lose sleep over lost playoff games, but I don’t like them. Something happens in my body during the final seconds of a game when victory begins to slip away from my team’s grasp. I don’t know what to call the feeling, but shame is one of its distant cousins.
A recent meme cut to the heart (and triviality) of this feeling: “I hate when my sports teams embarrass me in front of my internet friends.”
This feeling of deep connection is most acute for amateur, school-based sports.
This can be difficult to explain to friends outside the United States. In most countries, athletic competition associated with high schools is only a slight notch in status above intramural sports. And as for intercollegiate athletics, there is nothing comparable to the NCAA.
The emotional bond between a fan and their school is a distinctly American phenomenon. Many of us order our entire lives around it.
This strong sense of connection is mostly harmless. That is, except in cases where institutional loyalty causes us to close our eyes and plug our ears to the harm (sometimes violent harm) caused by athletic programs. I have been complicit in this, something I will spend a lifetime repenting from.
In some areas, unfettered loyalty to an institution or movement is almost always dangerous. In our current political environment, we no longer tether our loyalty to values or ideas, or even to our God, but to our team. Indeed, we interpret our values, ideas, and faith in God through the lens of our team rather than the other way around.
In this world, values of conservativism, liberalism, inclusivity, truth, love, generosity, and safety, to name a few, take a backseat to whatever political party claims those values.
Team loyalty, rather than values, drives the vehicle. This has been on full display in recent weeks with the migrant crisis on the U.S. border.
For years, one political party in our country has deemed this the defining issue of our time and has demanded action. In recent months, both major political parties came to the table to hammer out a plan. The result was backed by a majority on both sides and included elements that those “demanding action” have been asking for.
However, at the direction of their presumptive Presidential nominee, the “Take Action Now” party decided to not take action. They did this because taking action now would remove the migrant crisis from the table to use as a campaign issue.
The value took a back seat to the team.
This is why it didn’t matter to the “Take Action Now” team when one of their players lied to the American people about the details regarding an element of the migrant crisis. Truth wasn’t driving, and neither was “taking action now.” The team and its desire to win was.
But the “Take Action Now” team isn’t alone in its reversal of priorities. The “Preserve Human Rights” team has placed human rights in the backseat as it drives the conversation about an ally’s disproportionate use of force in the Middle East.
We all have a lot of work to do, untethering our identity from temporal institutions and movements. Politically, this isn’t easy in a system that only gives two viable options. It should be easier for people of faith, whose identity is in our belovedness.
But it isn’t always easier. I ain’t losing any sleep over it, except when I do.
Senior Editor at Good Faith Media.
