You know you love your Ducks when you are hoarse and sore-legged rolling out of bed on a Sunday morning. Yesterday you stood for four hours in the loudest and proudest stadium, paid six bucks for a hot dog and wore an obnoxious green and yellow wig.
But wouldn’t you say it’s all worth it to watch the No. 1 team in the nation?
Other schools have been waiting years for a sensation this good. And you know the rest of college football would kill to have a Heisman Trophy candidate scoring touchdowns left and right at the most unreal pace. I see a classic example of magical, once-in-a-lifetime circumstances.
How can one not be excited by this? Sure football isn’t for everyone, but I would be genuinely concerned if anyone who calls himself an Oregon Duck wasn’t the least bit proud of our boys. Talent of this degree is hard to snub in a smaller town like Eugene, considering it already revolves around Phil Knight and the kingdom of Nike.
Now in my family, sports are the drug we can’t get enough of, but I’ll admit that my sports IQ is far from sharp. Still, I know enough to understand why people fully invest themselves in their favorite teams and phenomenal athletes. Competition fuels the fiery side of our souls, and the dramatic elements of winning and losing are what keeps them burning.
In the Nov. 3 issue of the Daily Emerald, a reporter thumped himself and fellow fans for having a passionate devotion to sports. It’s valid that important happenings in our world are being neglected. But is it just a football team that is the brick wall eclipsing our minds from priorities?
Let us not forget the portion of the population who couldn’t tell you what schools are in the Pac-10 and are equally uneducated in our country’s happenings as well. Aren’t they to blame as well?
When you think about it, everyone’s dedicates his life to something. It seems to me that an obsession over a sports team is about as healthy an indulgence as any addiction to Facebook, constant partying or living only for the next episode of South Park, all of which are quite common among our generation.
Now I’m not saying that any of these is a good excuse for not involving oneself in war efforts or staying up-to-date with political matters. I regret to admit that I do not bear an in-depth perception of our country’s debacles and the immensity of our strife. Yet this doesn’t mean I and others like me are completely heartless.
We are all aware of the deep hole that America is in. The news has it blaring round the clock, and as students we are confronted with insights on our economic, political and social affairs every day, whether we seek it out or not.
This campus was crawling with voting recruiters since the beginning of the term for the recent elections. During the oil spill crisis this past year, I was surprised by the number of my peers who expressed their sorrow and how well-informed they kept themselves on the status of the situation.
The prolonging struggles we deal with have been exhausting and unfortunate. This is part of the reason why sports are put on a pedestal with such prominence, and why they came to exist in the first place. We need that escape: a form of enjoyment that takes us away from talk of destitution and evils of our world.
I have the utmost respect and appreciation for troops who are risking their lives and fighting for our sake. They are the ones who even make it possible for us to plop ourselves in front of the TV and watch Shaq brick yet another free throw, or the Giants win their first World Series in decades. However, just because we don’t post messages to soldiers doesn’t mean that there is an absence of appreciation and gratitude.
It would be more appropriate to encourage readers to get more involved in world affairs as opposed to making them feel guilty for checking updates on ESPN. Some of us, if not all, are capable of finding that balance between being a good citizen and still reveling in our Ducks.
Americans who prize their favorite teams should not be criticized. Sports are a pastime, a love shared by many that does not appear to be fizzling out anytime soon.
As long as Duck football continues eating teams for breakfast, lunch and dinner, everyone is going to want a helping. It is just a game, but games are part of life too.
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