I don’t care who wins!
“Who’s playing?” asked my wife.
“Clemson and Alabama,” I replied.
“Who do you want to win?”
“Don’t care.”
“Then why are you watching?”
That was easy to answer!
The love of sports, the beauty of the game, the competition! The strategies of individual match-ups, of teams standing toe to toe, crashing into each other and then releasing for a moment, huddling up, gaining new strategies and engaging again.
I happily grabbed my pretzels and root beer, sat in my favorite chair, turned on the tv, and flicked the channels until I found The Game. That was the only sports event deserving of capital letters on this particular evening: the national championship college football game. I really don’t care who wins!
It went good and bad with great efforts and foolish mistakes. One gained the advantage, the other staggered, and then bounded into battle again. It was give and take, advantage and disadvantage. One took the lead, it looked like it was over, and then the other team scored to tie it up.
Then a surprise – an on-side kick. I had not expected it, but it worked. All the preparation, all the time, all the effort, came down to a surprise. I wish I had predicted it, but I didn’t.
The beauty, the battle, the believing and disbelieving – it all sucked me in. It kept me awake, alive and fired up to the end. It all boiled down to a surprise kick.
I watched the winners leap and yell, and the losers anguish over what might have been. I felt for both teams – happy for the winners and sad at the same time for the losers, even though I really didn’t care who won.
The game was over at 12:30 AM and I was released to bed, two hours past my usual I’ve-had-it-gotta-go-to-bed-time. But my mind swirled and I kept saying to myself, “Wow! What a game! It finished on a surprise! They won on a surprise! I’m really glad I didn’t care who won!!” And in my confused and spinning state I eventually drifted off to sleep, but not before I smiled to myself and said, “Go Bucks!”
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