Not Duke vs. North Carolina or Michigan vs. Notre Dame. Just two Idaho teams playing on a Saturday night. Maybe it's not small potatoes after all. Because if 30,000-plus people want to watch those two teams play, then sports has to be more than a meaningless American pastime. Broadcasters, writers and philosophers talk about sports as though they are trivial, unimportant and nearly unsubstantial to American life.
Sports give people a way to connect to each other.
Talking about sports becomes a way for the biggest, richest business man on Wall Street to form a bond with the poorest, shrimpiest kids out on the street. So, people we have never met, people who grew up in different eras or areas are suddenly on common ground when sports is the topic. Because in the eyes of sports, they're equals. That's a little harder to pin down. Maybe it's because sports are a natural extension of human exuberance.