I Hate John Paxson

I was six years old, my shaggy hair was pushed to the right, dividing my large, round head. I had on a green, button up Killer Tomatoes shirt and was sitting on the floor of my living room. My face was two feet from the screen of the television. “Danny, scoot back, you’re going to hurt your eyes,” my mom repeated. I already needed glasses; she just didn’t know that yet. I inched closer and closer to the television as the clock ticked away on the basketball game I was watching. It was game 6 of the 1993 NBA finals and the Suns were playing the Bulls. I was obsessed with the Suns and Dan Majerle was my God and they were playing the hated Michael Jordan’s Bulls. I sat there watching as a little known Bulls role player named John Paxson lined up and took a three with little time remaining and the Suns up by two. I stared as the ball spun in the air, and was just happy that Michael Jordan wasn’t the one shooting it. But it ripped the chords and went in. I cried when the Suns lost and have hated John Paxson ever since.

I thought of this moment yesterday when my sister asked, “Why are all these people so angry with Lebron James? God, people take sports so seriously, it’s ridiculous.” I see this response from non-sports fans all the time. They think it is silly to get so attached to grown men playing games.

“It’s sports hate,” I explained to her, “which is it’s own category of hate. When I say, I hate someone who plays on the Lakers, I don’t hate them in the same sense I hate someone who is a racist and kicks puppies.”

“But some people take it way too seriously.”

“Some people do, but you have to understand that people are invested in their teams. You cried at the end of Lost and those are fictional characters. Sports have real human beings doing real things.”

“They’re playing a game, the people on Lost were doing important things.”

I can only laugh at that argument. She may be right, it is kind of ridiculous to get so wrapped up in men you don’t know playing games for millions of dollars. Part of me is embarrassed that I take it so seriously. But the emotions I have with sports are genuine, and at a time in my life when I have fewer and fewer genuine emotions, that is something I want to hold onto. I can’t recapture the joy of running out to see my gifts from Santa on Christmas morning, but sports make me feel just the way I did when I was six. They make me jump out of my seat and yell at the top of my lungs. That is a rare thing and I am not going to let my brain talk me out of it because sometimes I am embarrassed by it. For all I know, John Paxson is a very nice man, but that doesn’t change the fact that every time I hear his name, I wish he was standing in front of me so I could kick him in the shin and run away.