Finding Meaning in the Slog of Life

Me and my youngest Friday at the game.
I was glad to share something that matters to me with him.

This isn’t important. You’re welcome to continue reading if you’d like (and I hope you do), but I want to be up front about what you’re about to read. It’s not important. 

And let’s be clear, I’m not out here trying to change the world with this blog. If I was, I’d probably use better words. I’m not even sure I’m even trying to change anyone’s mind about anything. The platonic ideal of this whole endeavor is to be somewhat amusing and entertaining while filling you in on what is going on around Tormenta’s League One and W-League teams. 

But even in that, it’s just soccer. It’s only important because we have decided it is. Sam Miller on the baseball podcast Effectively Wild said it best back in 2014 (and this is said tongue in cheek to an extent) about what we’re doing here:

The point of this entire enterprise is to entertain us with baseball games. The point of it is not to decide who is the best team. The illusion that that is what we’re doing has long been a powerful draw to sports. But it is ultimately not the point. There is no scenario where the universe will care or remember who the best team was out of this collection of collections. It only matters inasmuch as we create this illusion that it matters.

If you lose even the illusion, then it becomes problematic. But the point is not to have the illusion: the point is to entertain people and make them forget that we are all dying right in front of each other — that this is just this horrible, rotten slog to rigor mortis, that we are going to lose everybody we know, that we are going to lose everything we have and the only way to distract ourselves is by separating our day into distractions.

Replace “baseball” with “soccer” and that’s basically what’s going on here. It doesn’t really matter except that we’ve all collectively agreed that it does. So we wear jerseys and sing songs and gather together to watch and cheer on our team. In a universe where we can decide what, if anything, matters, we’ve decided that this league and this sport is important enough for us to invest our time and energy in.

And since it does matter to us, we want things to go our way. We want to win. We want our 11 to defeat the other 11 and then we can bask in the reflective glory of our chosen team coming away victorious. 

It clearly matters to the players, coaches, staff and ownership of the teams. They’ve dedicated a big chunk of their time on Earth to the game. They’ve chosen to spend their time working to get better at playing the game and showcasing their talents to spectators and fans who, likewise, have decided the games matter and spend their limited time watching and cheering on their team.

And these games obviously matter to the many, many people who write or podcast or otherwise cover League One games and the thousands of fans who watch games each week. I’m one of the lucky ones who is financially compensated from time to time covering these games. Many around the league who cover their teams do it solely out of passion and love for their clubs. But even for me, everything posted on this blog is because I've found that Tormenta matters. The only thing I get out of this is the satisfaction of getting my thoughts out.

And because it matters to me and so many others, that’s what makes Friday night so frustrating. Not the Tormenta loss to Knoxville, which was frustrating. It happens. No one wins them all.

No, for me, the experience that left a bad taste in my mouth was after the game when Tormenta declined to make players available for postgame interviews. This was a first for me. In my more than two years covering South Georgia, win or lose, Manager Ian Cameron and players were always available for postgame comments. 

The way it’s worked since I started covering the team is following the match, I’ll meet up with a media relations staff member and let them know what players I’d like to talk to. Following the postgame handshake line for the players with the fans, the media relations team will let the player know they need to come talk to me. We do a quick interview and bing, bang, boom, it’s done.

Friday, however, was different. I knew it probably wasn’t going to be good when Cameron came to talk to me before the handshake line. That’s very much his “let’s get this over with” move when he’s and I get it. But to his credit, he came over, answered my questions and then was off. So far so good. 

But as Tavio D’Almeida was making his way to me with the media relations staff member, Cameron called over and told the media relations person something (I couldn’t make it out), but it was clear no players would be talking to me that night. 

The media relations staff appeared confused but weren’t in a position to do anything differently. They apologized and offered to make players available at a later time, which is thoughtful, but not helpful when I’m trying to get the story online by the next day. 

Again, this really doesn't matter in the grand scheme of things. I was still able to write my story and we all went on about our lives. It may have been a better story with some players' comments, but they might have just shown up and said "I'm just here so I don't get fined."

Now, no one needs to be judged when they’re making decisions under a great deal of stress and frustration, as Cameron clearly was Friday night, but at the same time, the decision to let players comment after games also isn’t one that should be made at that moment. That decision needs to be made at the beginning of the season with established protocols and procedures. 

If this happened while covering a college team, I’m probably not writing this. Even with all the changes to college athletics and financial compensation, that’s still college athletics. At least, for now, they’re not professionals. But Tormenta is a professional organization and one that, deservedly, has a reputation around USL League One as being a first class organization that does things the right way. One mistake won’t change that.

I feel like Cameron and I have a pretty good working relationship. We both understand our roles and for the overwhelming majority of the last two and a half years, it’s worked great. I fully expect, if I’m being honest, the next however long I’m able to cover them to be great as well. Friday was, I hope, just a momentary lapse in judgment.