February 8th, 2012
Dear Little Old Ladies Beside Me at the Duke Game,
First, let me apologize for my behavior. No doubt you have heard your share of profanity in life, as it is inescapable in this broken world in which we live, but I feel that it is necessary to apologize for the creative and vociferous brand of basketball-induced curse words you were subjected to tonight. I also acknowledge that I could have stood up less violently and less often, clapped more quietly, and created noise for defensive possessions in a much more court-centered manner. I hope that my behavior did not detract from your game-attending experience, such as it was.
However, I do feel a need to explain this behavior to you. I don't need to remind you that this is the second time I'm apologizing to you for my actions during the game- I'm sure you recall the moment during halftime when I turned to you with a kind smile and a hoarse voice, informing you that I was used to being in the lower level, surrounded by students doing almost all of the same things I was doing- being loud, being supportive, and being totally engaged by the game. It was indeed my first time up in the section I was in tonight, and I was unaware of how things worked up here- how you don't stand unless it's an important possession, how you don't cheer along with the band or the student section, and how you don't stay to sing the Alma Mater. I clasped my hands in front of me and sang Hark the Sound by myself after you left, unable to believe how the game ended, unable to apologize for the ridiculously loud scream that escaped me as that final shot from that remarkably talented freshman, who had the intelligence and self-confidence to give himself a nickname, went smoothly into the basket. I was shaking after you left. I was shaking from the emotion and passion and disappointment and virulent hatred that the game had caused to mix and flow throughout my core. I hope you made it safely to your car, and were able to listen to the post-game report as you sat in the admittedly horrible traffic after the game was over.
I had some time to reflect on the game afterwards as I walked back to my apartment. It was a rather long walk in the cold and I had it all to myself, thinking about why this game meant enough to me to be inconsiderate to you. It's not just that I didn't understand how things worked in your section of the Dean Dome. It's not just that I proudly attended this university and cheered for this basketball team for what constituted the happiest years of my life so far. It's not just that I hate Duke with the same passion that all true Carolina fans hate Duke, for their flops and their disgusting control over the referees and their smug, asinine faces. I'm sure that you feel the same way. Even if you didn't attend Carolina, you have some link to the school. You're season ticket holders, so you clearly care about the outcome of this game and feel some kind of dislike towards the players who wear that darker blue. Yet you were able to contain yourselves and enjoy the game, able to leave that wonderful room in a sustained and unshaken manner.
I think this game in particular meant more to me as an individual because I worked for it. All through my years at Carolina, I played in the band. I didn't get tickets to the Duke game my freshman year, which was understandable and bearable. I honestly didn't know what I was missing out on, though I still had memories of Tyler Hansbrough's broken nose from the year before ringing through my head as I watched it on my tiny dorm TV, the Smith Center clearly visible out my window. The next year, I got to go to the game, playing with the band and cheering with all the rest. It was a wonderful win in a championship year. The year after that, as a junior with senior status and a guaranteed ticket to the game next year through the band, I gave up my phase 1 ticket to a friend who was a senior who had never been to a Duke game. This was fine, because, really, I wasn't yet a senior and I think everyone deserves a chance to watch these two great teams play one another. I watched it again from my dorm TV. Really, it was OK to have missed out on that one, since it was the NIT year, though that was a bad year to give up yelling at basketball for Lent.
Then, last year, I went to the game with the band again, already completely proud of my team for the way they pulled together over the course of the season. In my last home game as a student, I got to watch our team beat Duke in the Smith Center on my senior night. I played in a televised pep rally before the game and I stood and cheered through every second of both halves. It was such a great time- really, I am not the person whose words should be used to describe the intense atmosphere of this rivalry game and the absolute elation of winning. I was signed up to go to the ACC tournament with the band, and so I did, being allowed to take a couple of days away from student teaching for this opportunity. I honestly thought, with a sinking heart, that the loss to Duke in the final of the ACC tournament, having to stand there and listen to their band play all of their songs when we should have been playing ours, I honestly thought that was going to be my last in-person experience of our team playing Duke.
I think it's important to note that all of these experiences were given to me. Through the generosity of alumni of the university and through the money of the good people of the state of North Carolina, I was able to attend Carolina and graduate debt free. Even though I dedicated four years of my life to the band to be able to travel with the team for a tournament, I gained so much from my time with UNC Bands that it's unfair to say I earned it. I really view my entire time at Carolina, like almost everything else in my life, as a gift and a blessing, a gift and a blessing of which I have taken full advantage.
But this year, I didn't expect to be at the game. Through a few well-placed happenstances, I found myself in the standby line outside the Smith Center right after five in the afternoon. I stood there, with around fifty other people, for four hours, watching the rest of the students file by in their phases, commiserating about the cold and the mud with the other people in the standby line. It was surprisingly amusing, getting to laugh with these grad students around me, talking over the situations that led us to be there, tweeting and jumping and chanting. I was surprisingly excited when they held out those tickets as we lined up outside the entrance where we had seen so many people walk in before. I grabbed the ticket that was held out to me and turned back to see half of my new friends stuck outside, my ticket being the last one they had. I can't say that I deserved that ticket any more than the people who got there minutes after me did. But they smiled hopefully (or at least the ones I had been standing beside did) and I went inside to find my seat, beside you two, right after the National Anthem.
I stood there for four hours. I had something invested in this. And as I walked back, I realize that that's what's different about my life now. A year and a half ago, I was ready to hand it all over to God and just see where He dropped me, totally accepting of whatever it is that was in His plan for my life. But over this year, things have changed. It hasn't been a gift anymore. I've made decisions, some right and some wrong, and I've traveled and made money and spent money and worked towards goals that I set for myself in a plan that I made all on my own. I have a soul now, you know? I have something I've earned, something I'm proud of, something that took effort from me, so much more effort than I've put in in the past. This year has been the standby line of my life, where I've watched other people's lives blossom while I strove for the same thing, just without that gift. But I'm grateful and happy for that standby line of a year, because now, for the first time in my life, I have something to give up. Now, it actually means something when I give my life away. It actually takes some effort, because I have things that I don't want to lose.
So when that ball went through that hoop at the end of the game, it wasn't just losing a game. It was losing a game and losing that effort that went into getting to the game. Because you want your life to be worth it. You want the things you work for to work out for the best. You want joy and happiness just like everybody else. I honestly don't care if the fates let someone else just have good things while I work for them, but I do care when we're all deprived of good things (even when that good thing would have come at the expense of that rat-faced, foul-mouthed coach and his legions of classless, obnoxious players and fans). It's a blow and an injustice, though admittedly on one of the smallest levels possible. But sports help us see the metaphors in life- they teach us to never, ever, give up; they teach us that if you work hard, and if you're lucky, you can go far; and they let us see how passionately we can come together to support a cause.
I hope this letter finds you well, and enables you to better understand my emotional state as I stood beside you at that game, jumping up and down, cheering, screaming, yelling, laughing, smiling, and finally, shaking, watching my team lose a game that should have been theirs. May life grant you a game next year with a better seat partner and a better outcome.
Best wishes,
Addie Jo Schonewolf
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