Believing in belief
I planned my whole weekend around Saturday morning. It was the opening weekend of the English Premier League season, and my team, Manchester United, kicked off our first game at 6:30 a.m. Memphis time. My wife was out of town, my son would still be asleep. It would require an early alarm, but if I timed everything perfectly, by the time United kicked off I could be on the couch clutching my first coffee of the morning, locked in for the long season ahead.
United finished third in the Premier League last season, but it was a stressful season, including a manager getting fired halfway through. Yet a late push to return to the Champions League, as well as a new manager and some strategic summer signings gave me that most dangerous of feelings a sports fan can have heading into a new season: Hope. United hadn’t played a game this season and haven’t won a league title in over a decade, but there I was, bleary-eyed but up bright and early, feeling hopeful that this was our year.
My son and I are halfway through “Ted Lasso,” a show I’ve seen before, but my son has never watched. The season one finale (SPOILER ALERT FOR A SHOW FROM SIX YEARS AGO) ends with Lasso’s team needing a win to avoid relegation and remain in the Premier League. While some around Richmond believe the team can perform the improbable, several fans warn Coach Lasso, “It’s the hope that kills you.”
In response, Lasso gives his team a stirring pregame speech which references and refutes the saying, instead arguing that hope is a necessary part of sports and life, perhaps even a requirement.
I tend to agree with Ted. We all understand that we can’t consistently get what we wish for, but we can always wish. We can always believe that this might be our day, our year, our season. It may not be based in reality, but we can always, always hope.
For sports fans, we are currently in a season of hope. Besides soccer and the NFL, college football starts this weekend, with our Memphis Tigers traveling to Sin City to take on UNLV on national television. With a roster stocked with transfer players, I have no idea what to expect from Memphis this season. Yet, I’ve listened to coach Charles Huff say all the right things in numerous press conference clips, and he’s made me a believer, at least in his ability to motivate and organize. Thanks to the transitive property of sports fandom, I now believe in the Memphis Tigers.
As it turned out on Saturday, United played an awful game and lost 2-0. It was dispiriting to watch, and it would have been easy to change the channel or vent on social media. Instead, I tried to remind myself that this was just the beginning of a long journey, step one of hundreds that await over the next few months.
Basically, I tried to have hope, a lesson I would urge everyone to remember as we head into these new seasons. Chances are that not all of our teams are going to win their league, or really even exceed our sky-high expectations.
But as Coach Lasso said, I believe in hope. When we’re out of other options, we can always hope.