DeaTH of A sPoRTs FanATiC

There will be a ceremony.
But there will not be a body in the casket.

There will be an epitaph.
But there will not be any need for flowers. 

The day is swiftly approaching. I can feel the winds of change blowing. I can sense the tide is turning. Only those that suffer the same "affliction" are in a position to understand.

Has it ever occurred to you to ask how a "sports fanatic" is made?
Despite the popular boasts on message boards around the world, they are not born from the womb. They are indeed made.

They're made from geographical and familial expectations and traditions. They're made from within marriages and long standing friendships. They're forged out of respect and pride and unseen obligations. Most sports fanatics are hard pressed to trace where their intense fandom even started from. They simply follow. Or blindly do so.

If you have known me for even a brief time, you have heard me speak passionately about the New York Yankees, Mets, and Knicks and NY area college basketball, all of which have begun to wane in interest as the years go on. But I have always been able to wax poetic about the New York Football Giants and the Michigan Wolverines. Out of all of my sports loves, these two have been a constant. I have held onto these with a white knuckle grip....until now.

Many of my readers will speculate as to the "why" but it doesn't have anything to do with anthem protests, touchdown celebrations, my teams' win-loss record, or Papa John's. I don't believe what I am about to say this but I am not as excited about sports as I used to be. I don't think I am a "fanatic" anymore. 

What does that word mean anyway? "It is a person filled with excessive and single minded zeal, noted by militant or extreme devotion."

That's what you see played out on forums and message boards when you make a disparaging comment about someone's team or their favorite players. You could like get death threats or be firebombed with obscenities and racial slurs. That's extreme. I have been known to get into intense verbal altercations about my teams and "First Take" has got nothing on the kind of battles we used to and still often have at our break room lunch table. We are engaged in fiery debate almost daily.

Winston Churchill said, "A fanatic can't change his mind and won't change the subject."

Philosopher George Santayana said, "A fanatic is one who redoubles his effort when he has forgotten his aim."

But something in me has definitively changed. Any one that is a fanatic of football will calm in demeanor in the off-season. That is normal but what I am experiencing is not. It used to be top priority to know what games were being played on a given night. I arranged the rest of my life to accommodate the viewing of sporting events. The time spent in my man cave watching sports was extraordinary and inordinate. It wasn't that I was not conducting a busy lifestyle. This sports lifestyle just meant more to me but that has changed. 

I have missed games last year and never careened off the side of the road, grabbing my phone to feverishly check scores. I no longer stay up late at nights in a dark room, gazing into my laptop to do fantasy football research to get a leg up on my peers. Most of my conversation with friends and family do not revolve around sports. I actually endeavor to spend time with my family and enjoy my downtime. I take classes to better my professional life. I meet with friends at the local coffee shop to talk shop or just connect. I actually make it a discipline to spend time reading, studying, and meditating on my Bible. I'm learning how to feed my goals even during my "free" time. I am growing up in a tangible way.

Many of my friends that wouldn't dare call me on a Sunday afternoon now know that I am available for them. They can barely recognize me now. I can barely recognize myself. Why am I sharing all this you might ask?

It's simple, at least, to me. If we're ever to truly evolve and progress, we have to be open to death. What has been the norm or the standard has to be pruned away so that the new growth can bloom. A seed buried in the ground doesn't remain alive there. If it did, it would produce nothing of value. That seed must die so that the new growth can take place and the tree can become what it is meant to be. So here I am, dying to a part of myself that I have literally fed or have been fed for nearly 50 years. Today, I am openly admitting "that person" no longer resides here. I still love sports and that is not likely to change but the fanatical side of me is dead. And I am happy to bury him never to rise again.