Last Saturday I was half-sick, half-exhausted, and when I finally woke up, none of my roommates were around. The evening was quiet, except for the intermittent bursts of cheering capped off by a loud, repeating horn. For the time I was conscious, I heard this horn two times, which equated to women’s soccer capturing the Empire 8 Conference Championship, along with field hockey and men’s soccer.
For athletes and Stevens sports supporters alike, this was an unforgettable moment of triumph. For a majority of the Stevens campus, this was a just an event, maybe memorable if a friend or two were on a championship team. For the past three years, I’ve been in the latter group, but this year I felt a part of the former one, even if I weren’t in the stands cheering the Ducks on.
How did I feel part of something that I’ve never been involved in? I was able to tap into a side of me that’s been dormant since I was an early teenager. By seeing someone I knew grow excited, advertise the games, and ultimately make their friends and other Stevens students excited for and proud of them, I saw the side of competition that professional sports fans have smeared with unbearable obnoxiousness and nauseating elitism.
When I hear Yankees fans (including six-years-ago me) claim that “we” won a game, or shout at others that “their team” sucks, I can’t help but get incensed. My sports fanaticism has matured to the point where sports teams I follow don’t define who I am, nor do they mean I am any better or worse than anyone else. However, the often ignored part of sports—especially at Stevens—is camaraderie, and their inherent ability to unite people, sometimes to a fault.
The perception of the athletes/non-athletes or sports fans/non-fans division is a reality, and that is due to extremists on both ends. Seeing the positives of Stevens sports successes at the individual level was a much-needed bias check for me—an overdue extraction of the always dangerous Stevens cynicism.
Women’s soccer, field hockey, and men’s soccer won Empire 8 Championships—that’s actually really cool. Sure, there’s no academic tinge to these victories, and thus won’t get the student-wide recognition that the Solar Decathlon did (scales of magnitude notwithstanding). However, even if you are among that disinterested majority, understand that an athlete’s victory is not a marker of your exclusion. Don’t let past biases define the present like I have. Let them go and cheer a little.
Congratulations again, women’s soccer, field hockey, men’s soccer, and all participating Stevens sports teams in this past weekend’s Empire 8 competition.
