March Heroes

March Heroes

Words Jeff Merrill

I remember exactly where I was in 2013 when Trey Burke hit a 30 ft dagger to tie the game against 1 seed Kansas with 4 seconds left to advance to the Elite Eight.

I was in the Thirsty Lion on 2nd St. in Portland, an establishment that became two other bars before existing in its current form as Xin Ding Dumpling House. I was watching a projector screen, standing behind a table where in front of me, a man and women held hands across the table, gazing up at the screen.

The 6’ (listed) guard glanced down to his front right at his teammate Nik Stauskas who had gone to the ground with a Jayhawk taking his screen. Burke stepped back and elevated to what seemed like 3 feet off the ground to sink a 3 pointer from well behind the line. You could hear the thunk of the ball off the back of the rim before the crowd erupted, and so did the Thirsty Lion. Burke strutted around the floor with his arms out to his side, fists clenched as the camera found a snarl on his upper lip. His teammates wrapped him up as he gave a stare that said: “ I’m built different. I got that dawg in me.”

Michigan won that game in overtime and made it to the Championship where they lost to Rick Pitino’s Louisville team that would eventually vacate the win due to things…

When Jordan Poole hit a buzzer beater from equally as deep in 2018, I was in my now wife's condo, carving up a prime rib that I had aged for a week and oven roasted. I involuntarily thrust my carving knife and fork skyward and only afterward thought about the safety of the other watchers around me, and thanked the good lord that arms go up for celebrating and not out.

In these moments, I’d won.

The ecstasy of victory coursed through my body as it does for fans of teams who vanquish their rivals, advance through the rounds, win Stanley Cups, Lombardi Trophies, Commissioner’s Trophies and Larrys Obrien.

Former President of USATF Craig Masback said of the USA vs the World program that used to take place at the Penn Relays- “we instituted it because people don’t really get on board with rooting for brands.”

Personally, I’m drawn to sporting events that are deeply rooted and organically formed, with traditions and rituals blossoming from them and becoming more embedded with each passing year. I dream of one day going to the Palio de Siena and standing in the square with the throngs of fans as horses and riders representing the different neighborhoods dash by in their colors.

Not to beat a dead horse, but in a sport that champions the individual everywhere else, in its most visible and impactful form- the Olympics- it is a team competition: nation vs nation. In this context, I use the term ‘team’ not  in its traditional sense of ‘team sport’ where players work together on a field of play against another team(s), but as an identifier for an athlete or athletes who directly represent a fanbase that feels ownership of wins and losses. This has been most successfully displayed in team sports by teams that represent geographic locations or institutions within those locations, like the Green Bay Packers, the New York Knicks, the Portland Thorns, the Michigan Wolverines, and Team USA.

A counter to the ‘team’ approach comes from the golf and tennis crowd. I’m sure there are a number of reasons why golf and tennis have been able to provide comfortable lifestyles for their top performers, but I think the main reason is likely that those sports require a level of skill that for those who do it well, is more apparently impressive to the naked eye. In sports that are heavily reliant on the development of technique that their spectators would like to improve upon, the best of the best are held in high regard for being most impressive at their craft. If you see Roger Federer hit a ball between his legs, maybe you want to practice the move tirelessly to employ at the country club. There is certainly an audience for this kind of instruction in the running world, but the expression of running from a developmental standpoint and even a mastery of it is almost better shown through training rather than the competition itself, but to limit the focus of the sport to this is to limit the potential of the impact of any given athletic performance.

We are in the midst of a running boom that has birthed a running crew and group run craze. These are not your traditional track clubs and workout sessions. Many of them form as groups of people to casually exercise with, and places to meet friends who are doing the same. Some, it has been speculated, are fertile grounds for romantic connections.

Seeing this craze has running die-hards rubbing their hands together, thinking that because these newcomers have entered the door into running, they can be indoctrinated into fandom. But, many of them are not like the golf and tennis crowd. These people are not looking to be impressed, they’re looking to belong.

In Michael Jordan’s contract with the Bulls, there was a special clause titled: ‘Love of the Game’. Where other players were prohibited from participating in strenuous physical activities outside of NBA competition, this clause allowed MJ to compete in any exhibition or pickup games he chose. Chicago’s pick up basketball scene is legendary, with competitive streetball taking place in the south and west side through the 80’s and 90’s. Locals even attribute an escalation in gang violence to the removal of hoops at public parks- the absence of games and public activity effectively limiting communal regulation.

Stories that have become legend are still told in the community of what Jordan did in this pickup game or that one. In this park or that fieldhouse. It wasn’t uncommon to see his Corvette Stingray pull up on the south side and for him to play in high level games with the people.

The Bulls represented Chicago, but Michael playing with the people of the city took that representation to a new level. No doubt he stuck his tongue out driving the lane in the parks, and when he did it on national TV, everyone who had seen it in person in their neighborhood in Chicago could point to it and say “that’s my guy, I know that look.”

Last year, Portland Track put on a series of all-comer’s meets for the first time. The goal was to provide an opportunity for all to experience the joys of ‘playing track’- for newcomers to have a casual, easy way to try out the sport, and for hardcore runners to be able to jump in and race in their neighborhoods. Hopefully, we would wind up creating some fans of the sport. What I noticed in these meets was that for some dedicated runners, it was quite difficult for them to get on the line. Either they were saving themselves for a workout, it didn’t quite fit into their schedule or it wasn’t the race they had circled on the calendar. The fact that it was called a race conjured up some anxiety when glimpsing the starting line. There’s some trauma there.

The newcomers had their own nervousness, but they didn’t have the baggage of the sport. They looked at it with fresh eyes. They said, “C’mon” Let’s go! I thought we were playing the game?” We’re doing the thing, right?” They were playing track.

Through that lens, who are the cool ones? Who should be fans of who?

The best feeling I had in running last year was lining up for a mile at an all comer’s meet in early August and running 5:05. I started with the pack and smiled the whole time, moved up throughout the race, felt good and applied more pressure. I moved around the track and played through the field. It was awesome. The time didn’t matter. I felt like a kid again.

We’ve got as much to learn from the run crew crowd as they do from the ‘tights wearing’ crowd, if not more.

Last year, a number of professional runners left Portland, they’re groups moving, or disbanding totally. Sinclaire Johnson made the decision to stay. Her life is here. Her friends are here, and her home is here. She said last fall that she wanted to get more involved with the running community, and since then she’s gone out for local run meet-ups and attended all comer’s races. She’s competing in Nanjing, China this weekend, running the 1500m at the World Indoor Championships, representing Team USA, but she is also representing Portland.

The run crews and group run crowds may not care to be impressed by interchangeable results, but they do want to belong to something special. They want to see someone from where they live who runs their streets and knows their crew. If she can summon all the strength and power unique to her and achieve a great result on the other side of the world, we can all point to the snarl on her upper lip and say “I was forged in the same place as that dawg.” “She wins in a particular way, a way that’s unique to Portland.” And her traits become one with the city, and in the glow of the win, the warts of the city become beauty marks, and people are proud to be from the place.

It’s not like this, of course. Not in the way it is with other sports. SInclaire got 6th in Nanjing and we’re really proud, but there isn’t a parade… yet. There are many reasons to doubt that running can ever attain that level of fandom, but there is no great disqualifying reason why it can’t.

I don’t know how many people in Siena want to learn how to ride horses better, and I don’t know how many Michigan alums want to learn how to shoot a basketball better because of Trey Burke, but I know that they are proud to be attached to the win, because it proves that there is something special about the place they are from, and it allows them to walk a little taller, and to be themselves a little bit more, because the person they are was also created in a place where people go on to do great things.

In the healthiest way that coolness can be assessed, being yourself and doing what you love while not caring what other people think is cool. Having what you do benefit others as a consequence is even cooler. Caring too much about what others think and wanting them to think what you’re doing is cool is not necessarily uncool, but neither is it cool.

True fanaticism is irrational, grown from an empowering story we tell ourselves about events that occurred that we had no control over, but it’s not transactional. It comes from people doing what they love and expressing themselves fully with the consequence being that it happens to affect someone else’s belief in themselves in a positive way. It comes from the heart and not the head. Why shouldn’t we try to create the context for performances to be acts of service in this way?

Your success can create more success. I want to live in that world.

*Article was updated after Sinclaire Johnson placed 6th in the 1500m at the World Indoor Championships in Nanjing, China.