Forwarded article: AFTER THE BALL IS OVER

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Comments:  
Very interesting article.


---Forwarded article----------------
AFTER THE BALL IS OVER

By Joseph J. Ellis. Joseph J. Ellis is Ford Foundation professor of history at Mt. Holyoke College and a former...

  As a transplanted Southerner always at odds with the arctic climate
and the good-fences-make-good-neighbors hospitality of New England, my
one pure, unadulterated conversion experience was the Boston Celtics.
I missed the Bob Cousy-Bill Russell dynasty of the '60s, but arrived
in time to ride with Dave Cowens and John Havlicek to glory in the
'70s, then be present at the creation of the Larry Bird era in the
'80s, when the Big Three (Bird, Kevin McHale and Robert Parrish)
became the greatest front line in basketball history.

Ten years ago, just as the Michael Jordan era was truly dawning in
Chicago, my old college roommate, a native Chicagoan and die-hard
Bulls fan, spoke the following fateful words: "Joe, never again in
your lifetime." He meant that given Bird's injuries, he and the
Celtics would never soar so high again, and that I should realign my
priorities accordingly.

    At the time, I thought he was crazy. More wind from the Windy
City. The Celtics would surely rebuild quickly, as they always had
before, and I would soon resume my accustomed posture alongside them
on the upward curve of history.

Well, that was then. In the intervening decade, history has happened
to the Celtics. And since it is bound to happen to the Jacksonless and
sooner-or-later-to-be-Jordanless Bulls, let me offer my unsolicited
but hard-earned advice about how to endure, even enjoy, this looming
next chapter, after the fall.

First, embrace it. For me, the easiest way to do this was to strike up
regular conversations with Red Sox fans. These folks know all about
deferred gratification, never having won it all since the departure of
the Babe not long after the Treaty of Versailles. The heritage of
Puritanism, with its flair for perversity, gives New England a natural
advantage over the Midwest in this therapeutic exercise. But Chicago
also has the Cubs, who embody a level of futility even more impressive
than that of the Red Sox. So start talking to Cubs fans. They are the
wise philosophers of buoyant despondency, the master teachers of the
lessons you must learn.

Second, cultivate an affinity for paradox. To come back up in the NBA
these days, you need to go way down. This means you need to lose a lot
of games over the next few seasons. Hiring an inexperienced and upbeat
but incompetent coach is a high priority. We selected M.L. Carr, the
ideal choice. (You seem to recognize this as a priority already.)
Derive your satisfaction from losing close games. Think of it like
selling short in a down stock market. Realize, too, that the
competition to reach the basement of the league is every bit as stiff
as the competition for the championship. Perennial losers such as the
Los Angeles Clippers, the Sacramento Kings and the Denver Nuggets are
almost impossible to beat out. Your very tradition of extended
excellence will act like ballast to prevent the Bulls from sinking
into the Promised Land where all lottery picks live. Learn to cheer
hard-earned losses.

Third, live in the past. Technology will prove invaluable, because you
have tapes of Jordan doing his MVP thingraining treys on Portland,
making the last shot against Utah. We have to make do with faded
kinescopes of Havlicek stealing the ball against Philly and fading
tapes of McHale posting up against L.A. (I like to view these majestic
moments against the background of Barbra Streisand singing "The Way We
Were.") If you're entering some version of what we euphemistically
call "midlife," the cultivation of nostalgia will blend nicely with
your own biological urge to do a pick-and-roll on time itself. When
the NBA playoffs arrive on prime time each spring, watch the old tapes
instead of the new contenders for the crown. I'll bet you'll conclude,
as I do, that none of the new guys could beat your old guys.

Finally, remain true. Those Bulls fans who slither over to emerging
contenders such as Indiana or Phoenix should be treated like
adulterers chasing the young skirts in some basketball version of
"Lolita." Know that now is really the time of your time, when
commitment truly counts. When the sheep will be separated from the
goats. Hold onto your season tickets and cable subscriptions. Think
about John Wayne in "Back to Bataan," think about Douglas MacArthur's
promise ("I shall return") and the enormous satisfaction that accrues
to those precious few who prevail throughout the darkest hours. Learn
not just to live with pain, but to relish the principle that suffering
has its own integrity. Even if the post-Jordan era extends beyond your
lifetime (as it probably will), you will feel fulfilled by dancing
with the folks who brung ya. The higher history is the history of the
abiding.

Obviously, it will not be easy. In my more depressed moments, I have
found that reading Milton ("They also serve who only stand and wait")
or watching "Casablanca" ("Here's looking at you, kid") can propel me
past despair and evoke a more appropriately mellow mood. Let's be
candid. I do believe we are talking about nothing less than a
spiritual transformation. Huge hopes and great expectations are every
American's birthright. The Celtics' dynasty delivered on the promise
more dramatically than any team in American sports history. Now the
Bulls have produced a similar, if shorter-lived, dynasty of equivalent
ecstasy. Still, the agony phase stands ready to let the air out of
Chicago's euphoria.

The arrival of the Rick Pitino era here in Celticland has conjured up
fresh hopes for salvation somewhere out there in the middle distance,
presumably in my lifetime. But I have internalized the mellow mood so
thoroughly that I am nearly immune to the hype. (Our best player,
Antoine Walker, comes from Chicago, but he is to Bird and Jordan as a
lightning bug is to lightning. If you want him, you can have him,
though his arrival would only delay the inevitable for the Bulls.)

Like those intimations of mortality that eventually crowd out youthful
illusions, I see my new mood as a sign of maturity. When you finally
accommodate yourself to the same realistic mentality, know that there
are kindred spirits in the Boston area ready to welcome you to the far
side of paradise, where all of us must eventually live out the bulk of
our lives.