Winter Pastimes

By Jack Worbreaker

 

 

Why does America watch Basketball in the winter?

 

I am a wrestling coach.  That means I’m a wrestler, a wrestling fan, a wrestling expert, a fighter, an aficionado, a technician, a mean mother and one tough son of a gun.  

 

That’s my life.  A wrestling match pits two well trained, perfectly tough individuals against one another in a very personal war for six minutes.  At the end one hand will be raised.  At the end one man will move forward, the other will fall in defeat.

 

In my opinion there are very few spectacles in sports which are more dramatic than a wrestling match.

 

My countrymen and women, however, disagree. 

 

Now in places like Pennsylvania, Ohio, Oklahoma, Minnesota, New Jersey, Iowa and New York their college wrestling matches will be as well attended as any basketball game.  The stands are likely to be full, the crowd knowledgeable and passionate about the contest at hand.  These are exciting dual meets and tournaments, this is exciting wrestling.

 

But in places like Texas, Florida and Georgia there are very few college wrestling teams left.  In California, where college administrators are cutting wrestling programs as fast as they can, the stands are nearly empty with several dozen or perhaps as many as a hundred spectators attending on average.

 

The next day, however, the basketball team will play and people will filter in until the stands are nearly full, the crowd will be enthusiastic and the game will be entertaining.

 

Why is it that Americans like basketball more than wrestling?

 

 

 

On the surface it does not seem logical.  Wrestling does not favor a specific body type – anyone can do it.  Short guys, tall guys, lanky guys, strong guys, guys with one leg, guys with one arm, anybody can be a great wrestler if they have the heart and determination. 

 

Not so with basketball.  Basketball favors tall people. 

 

Wrestling is combat, a brutal fight between two well trained, highly motivated humans.  But wrestling is also dignified: there are rules against causing injury, against dirty tricks.  There is very little trash talking in wrestling.   

 

Basketball is a floating kind of game where contact is strictly prohibited.  If anybody touches anybody else it is a penalty.  But trash talking is an art in basketball.  There are players who spend more time saying bad things than dunking the ball in the hoop.  Here is the message of basketball: You can say whatever you want, just don’t touch anybody. 

 

Wrestling is personal: one man, one opponent, one mat, one referee.  The crowd watches a battle of will.  The outcome is severe.

 

Basketball is impersonal.  There are always teammates to blame, substitutions help struggling players, there are timeouts and water breaks.  The outcome is rarely severe: you are just going to play again next week.

 

Not to mention: Basketball games are rarely good before the 4th quarter.  Never does an announcer talk about a missed three pointer from the first half when the game is coming down to the wire.  Basketball is designed like a long walk with a short sprint at the end.  The teams just go back and forth, back and forth, letting the other one score their points and then taking their chances.  Nothing is serious until the 4th quarter.

 

It is my opinion that we would save everybody a lot of time if we set the clock to 5 minutes, pull a number 0-10 out of a hat and then flip a coin.  Whoever wins the coin toss is up by however many points were drawn.  Then they can play the only part of the game that is interesting at all.

 

But I am in the minority among my American peers.

 

For some reason Americans like watching this game of balls and hoops over the sport of physical domination.

 

For some reason Americans prefer basketball.

 

 

 

 

I will venture my own guess based loosely on an amateur psychoanalysis of American culture and offer my only conclusion, however irrelevant it is. 

 

Americans are developing an inferiority complex.  That is why we like a sport very few of us are qualified, physically, to engage in.  We like watching the celebrities and their money on our television, we like fantasizing about very pretty women on the internet, we like engaging our minds in delusion.  It has become a substitute for actual living. 

 

Americans are giving up on attaining the American dream and have resigned themselves to watching others live it on television and the internet.

 

Basketball says: Don’t worry about it, you’re too short.  It’s not your fault you were born so short.

 

Wrestling doesn’t say this at all.  In fact, wrestling says “this could be you, if you would work harder.”  Hearing that doesn’t feel as good.  Americans prefer the pipe dream called 'hope' over its grittier cousin known as 'potential.'   

 

 

 

Americans are also becoming afraid of their own physicality.  We are losing our courage.  We have professional soldiers who will fight our wars for us, we have a docile public who are convinced it is bad to fight back.  The makers of money can extract whatever sums they desire and never worry about a revolution.  The average American just doesn’t have the balls for it anymore. 

 

Add to this the weird sense of entitlement which has been instilled.  We have a citizenry who feels it should be allowed to say anything it wants to whoever it wants and never have to worry about getting a smack in the face.  Americans believe you can insult a man, tell him you’re going to abuse his wife, get nose to nose with him and he should not be allowed to make physical contact.

 

We have a legion of lawyers at the ready to make money off of every physical encounter.  When our children go to school they are put in anger management if they push someone who is taunting them.  We tell our kids to just walk away, no matter what, even if someone is hurting your friend, even if someone spits on you, even if someone punches you first.  Just walk away. 

 

Don’t fight, ever.  That is the message we give our children.

 

 

 

So you’ve got a public that does not want to believe it can accomplish anything itself, who avoids fighting at all costs, shuns bravery, likes violence only on the news, in movies or in video games, a population that has no self-control, which promotes consumption and super-consumption, and enjoys circus performances over cultured acts of drama, a population which pursues mediocrity and uselessness and finds solace in inaction and self-abasement. 

 

It is no wonder, then, that Americans prefer to watch the balls and hoops game of basketball.  We can all laugh and applaud the circus act without feeling any real emotional involvement.  It is perfect for our new American culture.  

 

With this kind of spectacle, why would any of these Americans, with their feelings of inadequacy and hatred of reality, why would they want to watch a wrestling match instead? 

 

With so much television and internet pornography, with grocery stores filled with food and corporations hiring the less talented hacks and bureaucrats doing their best to not be noticed, with lawyers waiting to sue anyone for anything unusual and cameras trained to find the least respectable humans for celebrity status, I am surprised that the American public has not killed wrestling altogether.

 

Wrestling has integrity and it seems that my American countrymen and women feel that there is no more use for such a thing.  Integrity, after-all, is not very entertaining.  

 

 

 

As this winter goes by, I wonder what will happen to my beloved country.  I worry less for the sport of wrestling, the oldest sport ever played, than I worry for the sanity of our people, the people who are actively rejecting the most profound sport ever invented.

 

When we have gotten rid of the oldest sport, the toughest sport, the measuring stick by which men have been justified since the beginning of time, we might find that our new traditions are lacking.

 

Watching Sportscenter night after night, finding out about another NFL quarterback rapist and another MLB player doing cocaine and holding out for millions more dollars, seeing NBA stars dance and gyrate and glorify themselves, I wonder if our people will become the useless, senseless cowards they have been striving to be.

 

 

 

I will likely turn away from the TV and go to Oklahoma City in June.  That's where they're going to hold the World Team Trials and determine which wrestlers will represent our United States this year.  

 

Sure, the gym there will be half full but I will find integrity in sport.  Certainly there won’t be any dramatic juggling or trash talking but I will see hard fought wars.  Obviously there won’t be any reality TV stars hanging off of the arms of the competitors but so much the better for me.   

 

I will have found a place where men and women are trying to be the best for very personal reasons. 

 

There are very few of these places left in my United States anymore.

 

Soon we will have gotten rid of them altogether.

 

I wonder what will happen then.