The Making of a Sports Fan
“Iguodala to Curry, back to Iguodala, up for the layup! Oh! Blocked by James! LeBron James with the rejection!” This single quote is something that made me into a sports fan and watching it live was what determined why I struggled through watching the Cleveland Cavaliers and the Guardians for the next 5 years afterwords. However before we begin what makes this single quote from one final NBA series in 2016 so special? Well to start before all of this being a Cleveland sports fan would be akin to shooting yourself in the foot every single year and hoping that maybe the next year it hurts just a little bit less. But many other teams could say this so why was this year so special? Taking a look at this series you have the “king” of basketball finally stepping up and gifting his city a championship as he promised and as well making one of the if not the best comeback in NBA history. You have a Golden State team coming off the best regular season record of all time and the returning champions. So just off of this everyone knew this was going to be an amazing series.
The series would start off with Golden State taking a 2–0 lead and then the Cavs finding one and bring it to 2–1. Cavs fans still had hope and almost some comfort knowing they would be at home but then the unthinkable happened, the Cavs lost the game bringing them down 3–1. This was almost like death sentence, as no other team had come back from being down 3–1 in the NBA finals before. As a fan of the Cavs watching that loss was devastating knowing again that the gun was loaded and the shot in the foot was coming any time now. Then the Cavs won again, 3–2, and again, 3–3, LeBron and Kyrie were putting on a clinic during these games in one of them combining for 82 points out of the 112 scored by Cleveland. Finally it was the day of Game 7, I was sitting in our living room with my brother, my best friend, and my parents, we were all in the same seats as the two game prior and I did not know that this single night would make me a fan of sports.
Watching something as magical as this game live was one of the best moments of my life. This left me wondering 6 years later writing this down, how was one man blocking the shot of another man in a game one of the best moments of MY life? What leads to these moments? How do they affect us and what do they mean to us? Watching sports has always been a way for me and my brother to connect in the many ways that we do and it is always a way we could connect with our father. Not to say that my dad didn’t care about what we did, but as we humans do we love to share interests. So gathered around that tiny TV and having every single person in the spot that they have been in when the Cavs were winning and it all leading up to this game, it was special. The act of LeBron blocking that shot was not what was special, but everything leading up to that point that made the payoff was what made it special. Watching my mom who had left the church years ago praying to god, my little brother and my best friend standing there screaming at the TV, and finally my dad who had watched Cleveland fail year after year grip the edge of his chair knowing that this could finally be it. Finally when that last whistle blew that gun that I had aimed at my foot was not fired and the entire city of Cleveland exploded, I finally was a real sports fan.
