I live in Florence, Italy where the streets are filled with tourists and African men, the latter mostly Senegalese, eking out a living selling trinkets. They are some of the many thousands of immigrants that land at the tip of Italy in the Mediterranean to try and find a better, safer life for their families. As you can imagine they are not always welcome, and are routinely seen running from the police or heckled by drunk Italian youth from the peripheria. But last Sunday night in the suburbs of Florence not frequented by these traders, a 21-year-old Senegalese player for the home team scored one of the most brilliant goals in the Serie A this season. Fiorentina’s Khouma Babacar rifled a bullet into the top left corner of the goal from over 30 yards away, much to the stunned amazement and then wild cheers of the Florentine faithful, some of whom were no doubt members of the police or youth from the peripheria. A close of up Babacar confirmed that he might have been selling bracelets earlier that day in Piazza Santa Croce.
People wonder why I am a sports fanatic. By day I am a conservative economist that espouses personal responsibility and believes that a little more ‘market discipline’ will generally resolve most of our problems. How does a disciple of ‘logical reasoning’ reconcile the illogic of sports fanaticism? The story of Fiorentina’s Babacar is a clue; here are some others.
A few years ago I was in Philadelphia Airport killing time between flights. I struck up a conversation with a janitor (don’t ask me how it started) and within a few minutes we were in a heated discussion about whether it was a good idea for the Eagles to trade away Donovan McNabb, their long-time quarterback. The janitor spouted detailed statistics of McNabb’s productivity over the years, how much of it could be explained by injury versus the people he played with, and in the end he concluded that, though he himself really liked McNabb, it was the right thing for the Eagles to do.
In March 2012 as a high school graduation present I took my daughter to see Duke vs UNC in basketball at Duke’s Stadium. Duke has a reputation of being a ‘rich, white’ school so we were both a bit intimidated with what we might find; in that gym we saw fans of every color and class packed around the court, shoulder to shoulder to watch their beloved Blue Devils. I swear I saw what could only be a future Nobel Physicist (who else would dress that way with hair like that) slapping fives with someone who might have just finished his shift at Burger King.
I have many more stories like this. When we moved to Italy last year we ‘forced’ our daughter to try-out at a local volleyball club. She didn’t speak a word of Italian, but somehow she understood what the coach wanted and what her teammates said. Even in Italy, the rules of the game are the same, and if you have talent, no matter what you speak or where you come from, you can play. It was vindication for the years I spent telling my three kids, “Learn a sport, any sport. Wherever you go in the world, no matter what language, that will be the way you make friends.”
Sport is the ultimate social program for me. It’s my utopia, the arena where sheer talent and hard work actually do triumph over racism, classicism and evil, where everyone is equal and the best ‘man’ wins. The convening ability of sport is unparalleled. Just show up with a soccer ball in an African village, or a basketball in an empty playground in New York City, jog around your neighborhood and count how many people encourage you when they otherwise wouldn’t say hi. Everywhere I go, I look for and find sports bringing together people who otherwise would have nothing to say to each other, because they either speak different languages (literally) or live in different worlds (figuratively).
But doesn’t sport also engender hatred? Don’t people fight and kill over sports teams? How about racist taunts at football matches? Of course like in any sphere, when passions run high human beings will seek easy ways to release frustration and anger. The beautiful black Senegalese who scored the goal for Fiorentina is no doubt viewed differently by the overwhelmingly white fans from the other side. Until he transfers to their team.
Shouldn’t we value intelligence or brainpower over physical skill? After all physical skill can’t help us find that malaria vaccination. Yes we need and should nurture and reward brain power. Yet physical talent is so obvious and plain to see, its beauty touches us in a way that being able to solve a math problem just doesn’t. Assessing someone’s academic prowess is a messy matter, made difficult by high-priced, score-raising tutors. But when a kid juggles a ball 100 times or runs a mile in under five minutes, anyone and everyone can see that she has talent.
At the game the other night, Babacar fell on his hand in the 60th minute and went down. The 50 year Italian woman next to me who chain smoked during half-time threw up her arms and yelled O mio Dio (oh my God). Across the stands there were murmurs of concern about his hand. At that moment, at the stadium and across this ancient renaissance city, thousands of Florentines were genuinely concerned about the health of a 21-year old Senegalese. That is the power of sports.