The Fear of Losing and High It Gives Us

Commentary8 years ago3 min readGiancarlo Navas

Ah the fear. Welcome back. The feeling of anguish and desperation have once again crept into the South Florida sports fan. This is when sports are at it’s most exciting and most painful.

When there is doubt is when we feel alive. When the players you have seen grow, succeed and fail try to overcome what feels like the insurmountable. It’s then that there is a heightened sense of existing. Everything counts. It allows us to live and die by every shot.

It’s the agony of it that creates the feel good. It’s having lost hope then suddenly having it restored. What makes Game Six of the 2013 NBA Finals feel so good? It was the feeling of rock bottom when all seemed lost. The fear of America’s laughter coming all off-season. The fear of the greatest team in the history of South Florida sports getting broken up.

So when the moment that Ray Allen’s shot goes in, the high created by survival is juxtaposed to the feeling of despair that was experienced seconds before. A swaying in mood that drastic can only be created by the theater of sports.

Basketball will never feel like that ever again in Miami. Yes, I am speaking in absolutes and I know only a sith deals in them, but basketball will never be played at those stakes again down here. The blueprint in jeopardy every year, those were the stakes.

The most hated team in my lifetime played in Miami and America relished in its losses. So when the game is on the line and Ray Allen hits a miracle shot to save not only their season but their blueprint and the legacies of several people, is when sports are at it’s peak. That is when sports gives you the greatest feelings. Those are the moments you will remember forever, the moments you will share with your children and their children. 

Sports can be an immensely personal thing, everyone has different connections with it, sometimes it’s something as basic as civic pride and other times it’s a bond with an another person, or how sports saved you in some way. These emotionally and personal connections make these stakes have so much weight. There is a heightened sense of existence. It matters more.

So despite the basketball being terrible, AND MY GOODNESS has it been terrible, this series has provided the drugs we need to keep our high. To stay on edge. Fans kind of like the abuse, even if they don’t care to admit it. They don’t openly say “yeah, I prefer to be down in a series,” when given a choice. But when the proverbial line of cocaine is laid out in the form of an elimination game, you put your head down and take a hit. Even though you know it’s stupid and wrong, it’s the only way to get that high.