We Win, They Lose

They lost again today. “They” are the University of Iowa Hawkeye football team, my alma mater. They’re having a pretty mediocre year, at best, one week losing to the worst team in the Big Ten, the next week beating one of the best teams in the league. On Monday afternoons, a group of us geezers meet at George’s Buffet for drink and grumbling, as we do most afternoons, but on Mondays we spend much of our time going over the previous Saturday’s game, expressing our multitude of observations and opinions, the bulk of them as uninformed and oblivious as we can muster. But inevitably our confab will refer to the Hawkeyes either as “we” or “they” depending on whether the team won (“Why can’t we do that every week?,” Don will ask in frustration) or whether the team lost (“They looked like shit in a stopped-up crapper,” Bill will remark in frustration). And that’s probably the way most people use pronouns to refer to whatever teams in whatever sports they follow – winners are “we,” losers are “they.” We embrace linguistically our winning team, and spurn the losing team.

Football TV

The football TV shows – college and pro – are back on the air in this fall season, and once again they have kicked the news – local and national – off our screens for the next five or six months. It’s a strange message the networks send us: For six or seven months, the world, national, and local news continues its consequence, its import throughout the weekend. But once the football season starts, it’s as if all that’s significant retreats into hibernation, replaced by what’s really important, physical mutants trying to maim one another for the edification of those of us who think these contests hold some worth (which they potentially do for those who bet on them (or broadcast them)). What’s on TV is what we value. I may loath it. But here I sit, watching it. Just one more unwitting idiot with a flat-screen HD TV and too much time on his hands.