Small-school sports = purity
By Michael BeDan
The Metropolitan
Drama.
Sports rely on it, fans love it.
Dramatic moments unfold from the time a little-leaguer first buckles the chin strap on a football helmet or throws 20 feet short of the first baseman. Only the motive changes.
Big-league sports are contrived to draw fans with loose wallets and short memories. Labor strikes, arrogant athletes and greedy owners soil the games we loved as children but pay to observe as adults.
No sport or age group is immune to the defiling characteristics of todayās games. Disagree? Watch the Little League World Series sometime as 10 and 12 year olds vehemently argue with an umpireās call or spike a batting helmet after striking out.
But, through all the ugliness, sports endure. Sometimes a moment so pure, so breathtaking ÷ Michaelās fadeaway as time expires, Juniorās sweet swing or the Golden Bear recapturing the past at Augusta to name a few ÷ can erase all that is wrong with sports for a sublime moment in time.
But real fans, fans of sports and not big names, can find those moments anywhere. In five years of sportswriting, Iāve covered everything from a high school gymnastics meet to an NCAA Regional Tournament basketball game.
Of the 300 or so contests Iāve written about, each had at least one moment.
Nowhere has it been so clear as right here. Metro sports and Division II collegiate sports provide enough drama ÷ sans the big-money shoe contracts, the point-shaving scandals and the prima donna-pros-in-the-making ÷ to make a $200 trip to a professional event seem frivolous. The problem, at least from this view, is that American sports fans, like the rest of U.S. culture, are too infatuated by the endorsement-laden millionaires and the quick-fix rush of professional sports and big-time college athletics.
In the years Iāve spent on this campus, closely following basketball, soccer, volleyball, tennis and baseball, my appreciation of the Division II athlete has grown considerably.
When a woman, barely squeaking by on a partial scholarship, sacrifices body and spirit for nothing more than the good of the team, itās genuinely inspiring.
There are no agents waiting after the game.
No hungry autograph seekers hoping to land a gem they can sell for hundreds or even thousands of dollars 10 years later.
If a Metro contest draws 500 people, itās a minor miracle.
These athletes play sports for the same reason you and I played as awkward little kids.
The fun.
The competition.
The joy of victory.
The pain of defeat.
Today, actors, rappers and endorsers moonlight as professional athletes.
When Tammi Baumgartner, a shooting guard on Metroās 1995 Colorado
Athletic Conference champion womenās basketball team, left the floor with a stream of blood flowing off her leg ... When womenās basketball coach Darryl Smith cried after the CAC Tournament victory over the University of Denver in 1995 ... When former menās basketball player Justin Land bawled after a CAC Tournament loss ... The collective joy of the Metro baseball team when it earned a postseason berth.
While nothing likely will replace the jaw-dropping amazement Michael can provide on the court, Elway on the field or Carl Lewis on the track, small-school sports provide a fix their big-time cousins simply canāt.
Athletes doing it because, well, they love it.
Nothing more, nothing less.
And when one hits the game-winner or blasts a kill on the volleyball court ÷ he/she drinks water, not Gatorade, slaps a high-five rather than hitting the million-dollar pose for the camera.
Drama ÷ right here.
