Chris Townsend

You probably think this is going to be a blog post about Jason Kidd. Or maybe Dikembe Mutombo, or Tim Duncan and the Spurs, or something else like that.

Well, as so often happens, you're wrong. This blog post is about ME. Yes, me — at 27, I am already experiencing the trappings of old age, as evidenced by the fact that it took me nearly a minute of thought to be entirely certain that I haven't already advanced to 28 and just blocked it out of my increasingly fading memory.

But what made me sit down and write today has little to do with my shocking short-term memory loss (which may or may not have anything to do with old age) or the fact that, according to several very trustworthy-looking emails I have recently received, I need to be worried about an enlarging prostate.

Instead, I've been thinking about how we age as sports fans. We already know how athletes age — gracelessly and in a lot of pain; unless they take steroids, in which case they age something more like a fine wine. But as fans, I'm not sure much interest has been paid to the aging process.

You see, my Bulls (yes, MY Bulls) lost a tough one the other night, and I saw yet another Chicago team's playoff series end in misery, much like almost every Chicago playoff series since my White Sox's 2005 World Series Championship. And yet I'm not crushed — in fact, only minutes after the game I found myself telling friends that "the future is bright," and "I still think this was a pretty darn good year."

The 18-year-old sports fanatic inside me cries out against this lukewarm reaction. Something about youth — I swear five years ago I would be furious over a loss like this, still muttering to myself and cursing the basketball gods that Rajon Rondo wasn't suspended for Game 7 or Kendrick Perkins didn't get called for a particular offensive foul in Game 3. But instead I'm sitting calmly at the keyboard of an over-the-hill computer and musing on how age effects sports fans.

Is it the fact that I know next year will be here before I know it? It's always been a theory of mine that the passage of time seems to increase in speed as we age, so perhaps I'm just content in knowing that the NBA Draft is right around the corner, followed shortly by preseason basketball and another chance for my Bulls to compete.

Or maybe it's only BECAUSE the future of the Bulls appears to be so bright? If this was our one year to succeed — if the championship window, as they say, were about to close rather than beginning to open —maybe the loss would hit harder, but I don't think that's it.

Could it be that, simply put, I'm growing up? Maybe at 27 I just can't muster the same passion for sweaty men in shorts that I could at 20... Then again, I still watch more NBA basketball than anyone I know and I did certainly live and die with each play over the course of the Bulls-Celtics series.

Then again, there's always the possibility that years of discouragement, binge drinking and drug use have rendered me incapable of feeling anything at that level anymore... But let's agree that while this is clearly a factor, there are other, more interesting things at play.

Altogether I think, like most things, it's a combination of things that leads to my relative apathy, but there's no question that as I've gotten older I've made more of an effort to see the big picture when it comes to sports. And it occurs to me as I write this article that my father, an ardent sports fan in general, is not really a big fan of any team or organization in particular.

He grew up in NY as a huge Giants fan, despite their departure for the sunny climes of California; but I'm realizing that, strangely, I don't even know what basketball team he supported growing up. I mean, I would assume it's the Knicks, but he certainly isn't a Knicks fan today — raising such a determined Bulls fan as myself, it's not such a big surprise that he tends to support the Bulls, but I can't really recall him rooting in any way that would make me believe he had a personal stake in the outcome of a given game or series (at least, not outside of hoping Chicago wins so he has a son who is pleasant to speak to).

So I think we can all expect to fade in our fandom as we age — that's not to say I'll ever forsake my Bulls, because I certainly don't expect to, but I think it is simply part of the natural aging process. As crazy as it might sound to a lot of fans, I root nearly as hard now for good competition as I do for my team to win.

But I'm far from really answering any of my questions here... Hence the blog format — I'm actually, legitimately interested in what YOU have to say on this subject, so please comment and give me some real insight on the answer to life, the universe and everything.

Something besides '42,' please.

I'm Kolsky, and I've said enough.

Got to admit I'm a Bulls fan and I didn't take the loss too hard either. I do think it's partly a function of getting older, especially just having so many other things on our minds -- work, errands, relationships, etc. At 18 you just live and dream the team and nothing else during the playoffs. But I don't think it's INEVITABLE that the passion fades as we age. It's appreciated differently. Less ardently but sometimes even more deeply. When the Bears lost the SuperBowl 2 1/2 years ago I was pretty devastated, but more subtly than when I was younger. At 21 I cried (I admit it) when the Eagles knocked the Bears outta the playoffs. But when the Bears lost the SuperBowl I felt like stone. I went back to work, etc. But lingering memories of the game still haunted me for months. Still do actually (Rex's pick-six in the 4th especially). Also I'm thinking of Nick Hornby's incredible sports memoir Fever Pitch about his love for Arsenal. It certainly doesn't fade as he reaches his thirties and forties, but it gets less hysterical and more like an addiction he's learned to manage.

That's it, I guess. We've learned to manage our addictions better.

And yes, the fact that the Bulls are young and getting better makes a HUGE difference. If this was the last year and their best players retired now after years of trying and not quite making it, we'd all be a lot worse off.

This is brilliant writing. well thought out.....insightful....and worded like a Van Gogh with each brushstroke clearly painstakingly well thought out.

having said that.....I am not sure what your point is ? 27 ? Old ? I am twice your age young man and you defintely are not old !!!!

but keep up the great work....I will continue to read your blog until I find an actual job and something better to do with my free time

all the best and " spread the truth "

coach crazy

When I was a kid, my favorite team losing was very painful, and that pain lingered for weeks (occasionally months). Meanwhile, the joy of victory faded away in minutes (maybe seconds)

After years and years of following mostly-mediocre DC sports teams, losing doesn't bother me at all. But any whiff of success--the Nationals breaking .500 in their first season, the Caps actually coming through in a game 7, the Wizards stomping the Bulls in the first round a few years back--I can savor these rare moments.

So, yeah. We're getting old.

The drugs definitely have something to do with it, but it seems that as we age we see the partial futility of sports in life as just entertainment. The more seasons we go through with "our" teams the more we realize there is indeed always next year, and that past championships fade away in our memories as do lost friends, only to reappear every once in a while in conversation, as we look to the future see who the next champion of the world and our hearts will be. For we are creatures of the present, and of anticipation of the future. Why do we wait through a whole six months of baseball to see a team's fate decided in a five game series? Anticipation. It gives our busy brains something to think about and mull over and get excited over only to see it get played out in a matter of hours or days. As we grow older and see this get played out again and again, we begin to see its redundancy and the seeming unpredictability is merely

By the way, I say "our" team earlier to point out the fact that we as fans root for the team from the city within which we reside, grew up in, or are at least close to. Besides playing half of their games in that city, what other association do teams have with the city? Whatever happened to players playing for the team in the city WHERE THEY ARE FROM. Players switch teams for money and money only, and we as fans don't give a crap. We bitch and moan but in the end still buy tickets and mechandise and root for the logo, for the idea of the team, whomever may actually be playing. I'm going to ask a set of questions most sports fans will scoff at because they are afraid of the answer: What are we really rooting for anyway? Why do we really care if the sports team from our city wins? The athletes spend their whole lives training and training and the group that melds together at the right time gets the trophy, only to play next year and the year after that and the one after that forever as each year we look to see who the NEXT champion will be. Always looking to the future... This is getting awfully close to asking what the meaning of anything is at all, so I'm going to have to stop. A sudden thought occurred to me, and I'm stabbing the White Sox fan in me in the back by saying this, but maybe the Cubs fans have it right. Maybe the point of playing is not winning, its to party and have fun... Huh...

Obviously no one has the answer, but what I do know is that as we grow older there are so many things to think and so many distractions with the crap we have to deal with on a daily basis it becomes almost impossible to maintain that giddy innocence of youth.

The child is grown, the dream is gone...

Multi-factorial indeed. There is next year and the bulls not only have potential but should feel good playing as well as they did and being as young as they are. There is the fact that as great as that was, Boston was without KG and at the end of the day, not a series Chicago should have been in to begin with. Also, we hopefully have nearer and dearer aspects of our lives than our sports teams. Sports are great, they're social, they get that male adrenaline pumping, competition is fun, etc., but it's nothing we have control over, it doesn't dictate the interworkings of our lives (unless you have a gambling problem), they deliver only short-term satisfaction, and they are not a human relationship. Being solely about sports at 27 or 87 is akin to people who do nothing but play video games all day. These are wonderful aspects of life for the purpose of ENTERTAINMENT in moderation; but to think/care/do only sports or Madden ends up feeling well, like you are still a teenager with not much better to do. As it turns out, we are adults now with plenty more to accomplish and many more interests and responsibilities. So don't feel old, feel that you are growing in the right direction, placing more meaning on aspects of life that dictate your functionality, capability, and long-term contentment.

Go Bulls! Go Bears!

I think some people become more fanatic as they get older. Maybe fanaticism is akin to an inverted bell curve. (I don't know, I'm not even a huge basketball fan, but I do like math analogies.) You're young and passionate, then a little older mellow and preoccupied with other things in life (like raising a young diehard Bull's fan) and then you get old and have nothing else to live for than your favorite sports team.
I've also found my baseball following fall-off this year as my energies are focuses on work and other commitments. But every time I find myself disappointed that I do not know the outcome of last night's game (and my students walking in do), I imagine myself as a retired season ticket holder somewhere (even if it is some double AA team) keeping score at every game. And, hey, even if you can't muster the energy to go crazy every time your team scores, or the mental capacity to stay upset for long, maybe devotion is want counts the most.