This Is The Year

When you’ve made sports not just your life, but your entire personality, identity, and profession over the course of three decades, you get used to hearing a lot of cliches. Some of them I’ve heard from my playing days, others to discuss the modern day superhumans that we gather around to watch, discuss, and as we do on this platform, Remember. 

Some of those cliches have left more of an impression upon my hippocampus than others. Hard work beats talent when talent doesn’t work hard is an absolute banger and a classic - a reminder that giving your best is a prerequisite to success for most of us.

The only two things you can control are your effort and your attitude is one my first coach, also known as Dad, impressed upon me at a young age and one that I still hold closely as a personal mantra. 

There’s a more self-referential one that didn’t mean much to me when I was younger, but as I enter the death throes of young adulthood and see more of my friends and peers entering the next stage of life, it becomes more meaningful.

Sports mark the passing of time to a 16 year old whose biggest problem was a tie between who are the Phillies gonna go to in middle relief? and will Donovan McNabb and Andy Reid get over the hump? doesn’t mean much. My entire future was still ahead of me - why would I care to mark the passing of time? You may not be shocked to learn that, as a rambunctious adolescent, I didn’t understand why we had to learn history since it’s all shit that already happened.

Sports mark the passing of time to a man just a month shy of his 32nd birthday, with a fiancee and more of his friends becoming parents seemingly every day? It hits a little different. 

I remember being 12 years old in 2005, when there was a massive snow storm the day of the NFC Championship Game between the Eagles and the Falcons. That meant my Sunday AAU basketball league was canceled and I actually got to watch the Birds for the first time since Week 1. They romped 27-10, and I would finally get to see the Eagles play on the ultimate stage.

I remember all the talk around Terrell Owens’ use of a hyperbaric chamber to heal his broken fibula in time for the Super Bowl, and being vaguely confused that the hyperbaric time chamber from Dragonball Z had a real-life parallel. 

I remember Freddie Mitchell, who had the biggest mouth-to-production ratio of any receiver in NFL history, giving the Patriots bulletin board material when he said he didn’t know any of the Patriots’ defensive backs and noting that “#37 is okay.” I remember Rodney Harrison, known to Freddie as “#37,” flapping his arms after coming down with the game-sealing interception late in the 4th quarter, and going to bed more proud than disappointed, confident that we would be back sooner than later.

I remember being 15 years old in 2008, and being not mad, but legitimately depressed when the Eagles tied the Bengals in a regular season game. In the moment I couldn’t pinpoint the reason why that specific game got me when the Eagles had so many more frustrating losses, but I think it was McNabb’s admission that he didn’t know a game could end in a tie that did the trick.

I remember feeling like the biggest fucking idiot for putting my faith in those guys, specifically THAT guy. At 16 years old I had spent the previous 10 watching McNabb and being in awe of his talent, loving his attitude to laugh off mistakes and keep pushing forward. I was so sure he would be a Super Bowl MVP one day - I was as sure of it as I was sure that grass is green, the sky is blue, and the United States Has Never Done Anything Wrong.  But when the football player you love confesses to not knowing the rules, you can’t help but think damn, maybe I am the biggest fucking idiot for ever believing in them.

I remember being 25 years old in 2018, out of college for 3 years and finding my professional footing in the production world, when the Eagles finally made it back to the Super Bowl against those same Patriots. Somehow that bastard Tom Brady was still under center. 

I remember, when Brady’s final Hail Mary fell incomplete with zeroes on the clock, still being sure to hear Gene Steratore announce “this is the end of the game” before I allowed myself to celebrate with the dozens of friends gathered to watch together. I remembered that 12 year old kid being so confident that we would be back, and that it took that 12 year old kid doubling in age for it to actually happen.

When we went into the streets of Philly to party, I never wanted it to end. I stayed out until 4am because I didn’t know when the next one would happen - the kind of perspective you can only have when your teams are 2-5 in championships in your lifetime (we’ve since moved it to 2-8, good job Philly!).

Which brings me to today, in 2024, when I am a 31 year old man. I can look back on all of those previous versions of myself and appreciate their perspectives. As I have grown older, and spent more time working in sports professionally, my relationship with my teams and my fandom has changed vastly from when they were the single most important thing to me.

Of course I still tune in every gameday and root for the Eagles to win - on the whole, I’m happier when they do than when they don’t, but it doesn’t ruin my day/week/outlook on life when they lose or tie. 

Similarly, the Phillies don’t hold me hostage every October like they used to. 2022 was special of course, partially because of how deep they went, but more so because of how long it had been. That passage of time caused me, in the last full month of my 20s, to appreciate that I was a mere 18 year old infant in my first year of college the last time it was Red October and 15 year old fetus when they last won the World Series.

And yet there’s one team that can still make me feel all those feelings of youth. The unbridled joy when things are going well. The suffocating idiocy when things go badly.

It’s those Philadelphia Seventy Fucking Sixers. 

It has been since I was 8 years old in 2001 that my favorite team in my favorite sport made it to the championship - stealing Game 1 and ruining an invincible playoff run for the otherwise perfect Lakers. That kid was too young to know what he didn’t know - Iverson just won the MVP! Larry Brown is the Coach of the Year! Those two are going to stick together until they win a championship. That kid was still dumb enough to think when they win it and not if they win it.

It has also been since I was 8 years old in 2001 that my favorite team in my favorite sport won more than one playoff round in a year. A decade of .500 basketball followed that Finals run, an endless pit of mediocrity with first and second round exits abound.

This was followed by 3 years of The Process, one year of a minutes restricted Joel Embiid showing signs of dominance, and now 7 years of .600-.700 basketball… with first and second round exits abound.

To be truly devoted to a group of individuals that have nothing to do with you, but all wear the same color and play half of their games within a specific location that you identify with, is pure idiocy. But it’s the idiocy of youth embodied in a way that, in those moments that mark the passage of time, allows us to reconnect with the unbridled joy we felt when we knew our teams will win, the grass is green, the sky is blue, and the United States Has Never Done Anything Wrong.

That idiocy has died out in me for the Eagles and the Phillies. They have won the big one, and as such the inner child has been healed.

Thus the only cure to my Sixers idiocy, one would conclude, is to witness the ultimate moment that will mark the passage of time. The moment that will cause me to look back at the 8 year old who saw Iverson step over Lue, the 19 year old who hugged Josh Harris after Andre Iguodala hit two free throws, the 24 year old who collapsed to the ground on Mother’s Day because the ball hit the rim four times and still went in, and the 28 year old who got in his first big fight with his now-fiancee because of COURSE I have to watch the Sixers lose Game 3 to the Celtics and throw a big hissy fit all night at this wedding, it’s the Philadelphia Seventy Fucking Sixers, and say to all those versions of myself it was all worth it. It Happened. You can rest now.

But the wisdom of old age tells me that the cure to my sickness may never come. Look at these current Sixers - just as my 16 year old self did with McNabb, my 31 year old self has spent the last decade in awe of Joel Embiid’s talent, loving his attitude to laugh off his mistakes and push through. He is truly the most talented basketball player I have ever seen in a Seventy Fucking Sixers uniform.

And yet as this man who missed the NCAA tournament his one year of college for a back injury, his first two pro seasons for a foot injury, and who has a knee destined for arthritis sits out the start of this Sixers season to get himself right, I can’t help but think damn, maybe I am the biggest fucking idiot for ever believing in them.

I genuinely don’t know how many more years I will be truly, madly, deeply in love with the Sixers and wanting nothing more than to see them parade down Broad Street as NBA champions. They’ll always be my favorite team in my favorite sport, but to be candid, I really thought we were going to have a ring or two by now after doing The Process and if you’ve kept track, we have none! 

I now know that it is if and not when. And I wonder if it’s best to just abandon the hope of if and accept that if it happens, it’ll be cool, but it won’t be everything the big fucking idiot who experienced the unbridled joy of youth thought it would be.

The inner turmoil surrounding that thought plays in my head like a movie. The scene that comes to mind is the end of Saving Private Ryan. Tom Hanks is my 8 year old self, my 19 year old self, my 24 year old self, and my 28 year old self, the big fucking idiot, bleeding out on the bridge, knowing he doesn’t have much time left.

Matt Damon is the man that I have become, the person my younger self was looking for, having a vague idea of what he may be like but never knowing for sure if he existed until I became him.

Importantly, I wouldn’t be the person I am now without that big fucking idiot, his passion for sports spurring me to relentlessly pursue a career working in them, and so I think it’s important that I heed his dying message.

Earn this.

What does that mean to me? It doesn’t mean watching every minute of every game, even if they’re down by 30, even if I have a wedding or a party to attend. It doesn’t mean allowing the losses to affect my mood and cause me to not be present for the people in my life. It doesn’t mean reverting to the big fucking idiot when the playoff exits happen.

It does mean refusing to give into my cynicism. It does mean pushing back every time somebody says “they’re never going to win a championship.” It does mean continuing to explain that Joel Embiid was a +91 in the Kawhi series and the Sixers were a -108 when he was on the bench, and that was the one postseason he was healthy with a good supporting cast, and actually this supporting cast is even better and more tailormade to his game, not to mention that Embiid is more skilled now than he’s ever been, so this is The Year.

I simply have to believe that this is The Year. Because there’s no telling when it is finally The Year. But if this is The Year? The big fucking idiot will never forgive me if The Year was also the year I stopped believing. That guy went through way too much for me to turn back now. And if this isn’t The Year, it means next year is. And I’ll keep believing that until it is either eventually true, or I bleed out on that bridge.

Earn this.