Title game again proved power of sports to unite
Everything stinks. Everybody is a fraud. Nothing makes sense. The refrains of anger and negativity sweeping across our country in recent months have threatened to turn America into the land of the fury and home of the bitter.
Then Monday night happens. A fearless college kid throws a touchdown pass in the final ticks of a four-month season to upset a giant opponent and win a national championship.
A coach collapses in joy on the field. Strangers dance in each other’s arms. The fearless college kid weeps.
Yet again, just when it seems like we are being swallowed by our own cynical misery, a nation is witness to true drama, real emotion, and the absolute truth found in the glow of a scoreboard.
With Clemson’s final breath of a 35-31 win over Alabama in college football’s title game, sports once again saved us from ourselves.
Riding an elevator at the office, I was addressed by a coworker who was marveling about the game – not as a fan, but as an observer of the human condition found within its four quarters. I asked what he thought it all meant. As he exited the elevator and walked in a different direction, he said, simply, “Hope.”
It was, indeed, about the hope that this country is still grounded in the notion that great achievements can be accomplished by unity, great moments created without bluster, and that there are trophies that cannot be bought.
For all its imperfections, sports works. Its athletes are flesh, its scores are final, and, when it performs like it did in the past year, its magic is unmatched.
During that period, maybe the greatest stretch in the history of American athletics, four major sports championships were each decided in final moments heavy with history, teeming with drama, and filled with that hope.
Begin nine months ago on another Monday night, the first one of April, when Villanova defeated North Carolina, 77-74, on a three-pointer by Kris Jenkins at the buzzer for the men’s college basketball championship.
The Tar Heels had just tied the score on their own three-pointer, by Marcus Paige. Villanova had five seconds to win it. Ryan Arcidiacono dribbled upcourt and flipped the ball behind to Jenkins, who threw it up as time expired.
Real stuff. Human stuff. And it was just the start.
A couple of months later, the Cleveland Cavaliers fulfilled LeBron James’ promise to bring a championship to his home region by defeating the Golden State Warriors to win one of the most compelling Finals in NBA history.
The Cavaliers became the first major sports champion from Cleveland in 52 years. They were the first team to win an NBA Finals after trailing three games to one. And they did it with a knuckle-biting 93-89 win in Game 7 at Oakland.
Remember it? They won the game in the final two minutes with James blocking the potential go-ahead layup by Andre Iguodala, then Kyrie Irving hitting the game-winning three-pointer in the final minute. Those two events were merely opening acts for the greatest sports drama of the year, in the first week of November, when the Chicago Cubs ended sports’ longest title drought with their first World Series championship in 108 years.
They didn’t just win it, they seized it with what some people believe was the most riveting game in baseball history, a 10-inning, 8-7 Game 7 victory over the Cleveland Indians that occurred after a three-run Indians comeback and a 17-minute rain delay.
Four major championships, four final games, four closing minutes, four last stretches that beat the clock and barged into history.
Sports continues to save us, again and again, most recently Monday night, when Clemson drove down the field in the final two minutes and toppled the Alabama dynasty with a two-yard touchdown pass from Deshaun Watson to Hunter Renfrow with one second – one second! – remaining on the clock.
“You can’t make this up,” Clemson Coach Dabo Swinney said.
No need. Not in sports. It’s the opus that makes us stronger, the miracle we can still believe.