Pain Means Nothing, Fame Everything

photo from:http://www.holycross.edu/departments/classics/jhamilton/mythology/aeneas.gif

"Arma virumque cano..."--Virgil, The Aenid

Hyperbole and nostalgia saturate the NCAA tournamnet. But when viewed in the context of the theme conveyed, that of the athlete as hero, such hyperbole and nostalgia seem appropriate, not out of place. In the course of one month, legend status is bestowed on a handful of players, who rise from the ranks of relative unknown to deliverer. From year to year, players are interchanged, new stories replacing the faces we have just recently become accustomed to. Each year this occurs, the story becoming as familiar to us as the quick tale we would hear before we fell asleep and our parents returned downstairs to finish watching Cheers.

The elevation to demigod (or demagogue) status deviates slightly from the path of the classic hero. Players rarely, if ever, sacrifice themselves for something bigger. Instead, they perform a deed which sets them apart from all others. Some act which causes destiny to be as not as far fetched as we have been lead to believe. It is these acts which write the hagiography before our eyes and cause us to sing ballads of praise in rememberance of their struggles. Ballads which immortalize their names, so that someday in front of television sets or in smoky sports bars remembering them will elicit raucous toasts, rivalving that of only Bill Brasky. For there is no dignity in anonymity.

Someday, remembering this will be a pleasure. It was always around this time of year that I regretted attending a D-III university. Although we did have a very solid basketball team, and I was able to pester a referee into a five second call one Tuesday evening, outside of the players on our squad, there were no stories. When an opposing team came to play, we had to invent our own background--there were no Bobby Knights, no Larry Eustachys, not even a Coach K to harass with incessant chants. The players were just as faceless--for all we knew the opponents were nothing more than a mixture of guys who were all-county acadmeic and those who Mike Miller once dunked over in the Corn Palace. Our jeers devolving into analogies, "Hey! No. 24 looks like the guy from 'Blue Lagoon.' Blue Lagoon! Blue Lagoon! Blue Lagoon!" But D-I basketball subsists on stories. The tournament gives us the unknown, and in the process of a week, they make them known. It is this evolution that the hero arises. The tournament is the vehicle through which, we are able to connect with these players devoted to a mission, players who have wandered for years before finally achieving destiny. They are a kindred spirit--a person passed over, unnoticed, finally garnering praise. That is why we sit with front row seats, we don't so much watch as we accompany. We are a part of the journey. We were there when they were in the process of becoming.

Man is something to be surpassed. The classic hero is the proof of this. Man is frail, man fails in the face of adversity. Man is susceptible to hubris and other flaws that make us common. But the true hero is the one who surpasses these vices. And the torunament gives this to us--players who constantly walk the rope across the abyss; players who are the lightning which follows the cloud. The tournament reminds us of our mortality, but allows us the glimpse of that which has surpassed us.
"I sing of warfare and man..."