No matter who we are or what we do, sports seem to have the power to bring us all together; people from all kinds of backgrounds. When we cheer for our teams, we are united as one in our belief that our team is the best. It is the cheers and adulation from the fans that often give athletes the energy and the drive to succeed. After all, what they do is for us more than anything. Without the fans, sports would mean nothing.
All of that energy that we give — the yelling and screaming, the jumping up and down, the taunting of the other team — is a great thing. Because we get so fully invested, our players make the crucial plays they need to win. The right calls are made.
But on occasion, the plays called or made don’t deliver like we want them to. Our passion and energy boil over and some of us have a tendency to boo our teams. That isn’t right.
The athletes go out and give 100 percent every single game. They spend countless hours training, practicing, watching film and otherwise preparing for game day. They live and die on the field, or the court, or wherever else. In the end, what they do is for the fans.
So it isn’t right to boo the team. We sometimes tend to think of our sports heroes as larger than life. We think of them as being “more than [men] but less than gods, like Hercules.” (A personal note, the Sandlot is one of the greatest sports films of all time, and I couldn’t help but to add a quote.)
It’s not right to boo our teams for a few reasons. It doesn’t make the team any better and cheering for the team can undoubtedly give them the energy they need, and it can make them raise their game to a higher level. Staying positive helps the team stay positive. Staying positive and cheering for our athletes makes them happier and more carefree, and it makes the margin of error less. Athletes play better when they are happier, and it is nearly impossible to do so when their fans aren’t happy with the way they are playing.
Booing can actually make the team play worse. The athletes on the field understand what is happening during the game. They realize when they aren’t playing up to standards. They understand the challenges against them. When they are trailing a team or are playing poorly, they know what’s going on. Booing them only makes them dwell on what has gone wrong rather than what has gone right. So much of sports is mental, and when that edge is lost, it is hard to get back.
We need to remember that above all, sports are just something we enjoy for fun. The people playing are doing so for our entertainment and joy, but they are human. Quite often, they are just kids, still learning and growing. They make mistakes. Sometimes they drop a catch or miss a receiver. They turn the ball over. It happens.
That isn’t to say that we shouldn’t be passionate and get fully invested in our sports — by all means we should. But we shouldn’t be fair-weather fans either. We should stick with our team through thick and thin. Sure, sometimes losses and bad plays are frustrating. But in the bigger scheme of things, it is better to cheer on our team all the time, instead of just when times are easy.