A trip behind the steel curtain one fans view on the role of sports in life

This is my final paper that I asked for other peoples stories unfortunately I didn't really have time to get stories becasue the thread in which I asked for stories didn't stay up very long. I hope you like it

When I look back at my life some of my favorite memories have happened during my time as a baseball player, family get to togethers or watching Pittsburgh Steelers games. As a fan of the Steelers or any sports team there are ups and downs, building of relationship sometimes relationships are destroyed because of a person love of a team and the other person just doesn’t get it, luckily I don’t have that problem but many people do. Also sometimes a sports team gives people hope like what happened in Pittsburgh when the steel mills closed in the mid- to late-70s or when the Aluminum Plant closed down in my Home town of Ravenswood and the basketball team won a state championship.

            Some times as a fan your team will encounter a rough patch and it may cause you to act out of frustration. During this period of time it is best if you don’t go around people who are fans of other teams who will make fun of you because your team is not as good as normal because it will cause you to say and do things that you wouldn’t normally do like yell and curse at your friends. Also this period could be linked to games with close games that could cause some people to have hart attacks, throw stuff, normally remotes, break TVs, swear loudly at nothing or yell at the TV loudly any could happen.

            Now the way sports teams build relationships is by letting you find people with a common interest, wither it be blogs, or going to games in person you find people that have a shared interest giving you something to build off of going into the future. How they destroy relationships is the fact that sometimes you meet the right person they’re into 99% of the same stuff you’re in to except sports and sometime it is reconcile sometime it is not. One example of actions that could destroy a relationship is what I have found at the Steelers blog I‘m a member of where the man who wrote it was doing cartwheels after a win and accidentally kick his son in the face, now luckily his son was ok and he and his wife are still together somehow.

During hard times that hit cities, most people turn to religion or vices such as alcohol, but some people turn to sports. The city of Pittsburgh was hit with the closure of the economic back bone of the city, its Steel factories at the same time that the Steelers started to get good and it became a matter of civic pride for the city. The people of Pittsburgh were like we may be down but our team is the best in the NFL. The same happened to my hometown of Ravenswood, West Virginia about this time last year when one of the biggest employers shut down and 500 people lost their job. About that time the high school basketball team was starting its season and as we started to realize that we would be without those jobs for some time the boys and girls’ basketball team was going to the state tournament. The girls’ team lost in the semi-finals to the eventual state champions, but the next week the boys started playing in the boys’ tournament. After a close call an overtime heart stopper and one of the Best State Championship games in recent history we won the tournament and allowed our city to have some pride about itself. Much like the city of Pittsburgh we were facing hard time but our teams were able to allow the residents to have some pride about them.

As you can see sports teams have many effects on people, wither it builds relationships gives you a sense of community, a trip to the hospital or allows you to have a sense of pride about your city sports team mean many things to many people.