Celebrate Good Times? Come On! Lakers and Saints

So the Lakers won The Big One.  Fans of the team (or maybe just some random vandals, who knows) took the opportunity to assault a bus-driver and police, trash some property, and raise some hell.

Everybody tut-tuts over these things, but I'd like to point out that its incredibly common in the history of sports, and indeed may well be structurally necessary to sports. Joseph T. Rowbottom: swam for his university, played water-polo (I'm not kidding), organized the Special Trip To Michigan, whatever that was, and had a vibrant social life. He also has a whole class of student riot named for him. It's like some franternity apotheosis.

The University of Pennsylvania once had a rich tradition of post-football "Rowbottoms," or minor riots (named for a student whose friends stood outside his dorm window and called loudly for him, "Hey, Rowbottom!" until other dorm inmates started throwing things): police and university officials decided that this romantic and colorful bit of university history needed to be retired, and It Was So.

The authorities in Pennsylvania had precedent: Henry II and Henry IV (both of England) found it necessary to enact laws forbidding "foteball," probably a very violent and passionately partisan village sport with few rules and resembling a cross between soccer and Ultimate Fighting.

The South African rugby team's tours of the the South Pacific threatened to introduce a tradition: they started riots in Australia in 1971 and New Zealand in 1981.  On both occasions, Apartheid provoked spirited protests against the visitors.  The collapse of Apartheid of course put a screeching halt to the once-a-decade sports riot.

And soccer: don't get me started. 

Okay, do.

After their first free elections in fifty years, Croatia might have had better, higher things on its mind, but found it worthwhile to wound sixty people because the Bad Blue Boys, the fans of Dinamo Zagreb, needed to have a discussion on the merits of their team with supporters of Red Star Belgrade, who colorfully called themselves Delije ("Heroes").The Delijes ("Heroes") doing what heroes do. Fire. Blood. And yes, it does have a passing resemblance to the pageantry of a certain early twentieth century German political party.

You'd think that hockey, being as violent as it is, would leave the blood on the ice, but no.  The Canadians, a proud and storied race who normally live indoors for 362 days out of the year, regularly come out to feast on the blood of the living after winning (or losing) the Stanley Cup.  The Montreal Candiens' victory in 1993, their 24th Cup win, persuaded the locals that doing damage to Ste. Catherine Street was the right way to liven up the night. 

Fans of the Vancouver Canucks, however, were not to be outdone, and the following year, they rioted from final horn until daybreak even though they'd lost.  50,000 thunderstruck (and intoxicated) Sons of Vancouver and 540 Canadian police officers met at Thurlow and Robson, exchanged greetings and tear-gas, and ginned up $1.1 million (Canadian) in damage to a rather nice city.

In 1969 the Soviets nearly lost the Cold War after losing a cold battle to the Czechoslovakian hockey team.

In 1960, 3,000 teenagers rioted on El Cajon Boulevard in San Diego over their right to drag race.  It was worth assaulting police over, apparently.

When Duke beat Michigan State in the Final Four in 1999, wow.   (I did my masters degree at Duke.  You want sports passion, Chapel Hill and Duke can teach you things 'round about March.)Oh, Canada. The god of victory demands a burnt offering. Thou shalt take a spotless police car, free of blemish...

So sedate ("soporific" might be a better word) a sport as cricket actually caused a riot in 1879 when an umpire ruled a New South Wales star batter out against the English.  (This is called the Sydney Riot of 1879, in case you have a thirst for sports-related violence.)

We could go on. 

The reason I bring all this up is because competetive sports, whether or not they anthropologically emerged as a substitute for war as is sometimes alleged, mimic it in many respects.  They most often tap the testosterone-rich homicidal mania, and control it.  They give it limits: instead of killing or disabling your opponent, for instance, you get his knees on the ground and let that suffice.  But you exercise dominance.

And deep in our wiring is a passionate need not to be dominated.

Strong emotions lie down that way.

(Unless you live in Indianapolis, in which case your Colts can demonstrate machine-like precision, make a decent run at a perfect season, go the Superbowl, and come home to find eleven fans waiting.  I'd say it's the northern climate, but look at the Candians for crying out loud.  What's the matter with you people?)

Which is one reason why I'm obsessively and fiercely proud of New Orleans.

Here's a city that's been hit with nature's sucker-punches.  The Saints win the Superbowl almost against all hope after a perfectly magical season.The El Cajon riots erupted when police stared coldly at drag racing in San Diego.

They turn in one of the best Superbowl performances ever (barring a lackluster first quarter).

They bring home the Lombardi Trophy.

And my kids and I went downtown to celebrate in (for us) cold weather with almost a million of our closest friends.

And not one violent incident.

The worst thing the police had to deal with was, well, traffic, and 800,000 or so people crammed into a very, very small area.  It took me and my kids two hours to travel ten blocks on foot.  But nobody threw a punch all night.

And the night of the game, you could hear one loud throaty cheer from the Riverbend to the French Quarter and out to Chalmette.  When my parents and wife and I wandered over to Maple Street, there were people singing and dancing in the street.  Some prophetic instinct made a kid bring a saxophone, and everybody was singing "When The Saints Go Marching In" loudly outside the student bars.Quarterback Drew Brees leading New Orleans Saints Victory Parade into golden age of peace, cosmic harmony, and apocalyptic conflict with the Anti-Brees Tony Hayward and The Beast Formerly Known as British Petroleum. I thought having Brees on a white horse would have been a good idea, but nobody listens to me.

Loud, but beautiful.

How come?

Because sometimes, success is a surprise, and you just want to enjoy it.

Maybe next year if the Saints repeat the win, we'll be as loud and obnoxious as anybody and show our civic spirit by hurling bricks through shop windows.  We, like the Canadians, Australians, and Croats are only human.

But that first time around, you felt like weeping.  It was relief that went beyond sports and got into what sports can do: get beyond its own violent instincts and into something deeply civilized, emotional, and beautiful.

You're grateful.

Gratitiude: it turns biology into gold.  Try it on today.  Be thankful.

Good touch...

... bad touch.

Comments

[St. Izzy O'Cayce]

Not to detract from your main point, but to add an exemplum to the building argument:

In 59 AD the hooliganism after a gladiatorial exhibition at Pompeii (Pompeii -v- Nuceria) blew up into a full scale riot so bad that the emperor shut down Pompeii's amphitheater. Gladiatorial combat was resumed there only to lift public spirits after the earthquake of 62. In fact, there is evidence that the amphitheater (read, "sporting arena") was one of the first buildings to be fully rebuilt after that earthquake, and many were still undergoing reconstruction when Vesuvius buried the whole place in 79.

So, yes, hooliganism at sporting events runs deep in the human psyche, and the peaceful showing in the Big Easy shows just how Easy the people there can be.