WHAT’S THE ROOT OF OUR NEED TO ROOT?

By Edwin Cooney

According to my trusty old dictionary, to root is to noisily applaud or cheer for a team or to lend support to someone or something during a contest. In that context, the word goes back to 1889. Hence you might say that many Americans went rooting on Sunday, February 3, 2008.

Okay! Make whatever you need to out of this: I was sorry to see the New England Patriots lose the chance to be only the second team in National Football League history (after the 1972 Miami Dolphins) to enjoy a perfect season and post season playoff record.

I went to my favorite libation location--and believe me it’s a very fine location indeed! --to watch Super Bowl XLII a week ago last Sunday. The crowd, like most crowds in my experience, was rooting for the “underdog” New York Giants. Thus, practically the whole place erupted with woops of joy when Patriots’ quarterback Tom Brady and company ran out of time.

Throughout the next couple of hours, the denizens of Linguini's, Alameda, California’s finest restaurant, periodically exercised and vocalized their joy over the defeat of the favored New England Patriots by the New York -- or is it the New Jersey -- Giants.

Call me “Sour Sam” if you must, but part of me wondered, in the wake of the Giants’ victory, if these folks were genuinely happy or merely momentarily appeased. I confess that I experienced a temporary sense of relief as I pondered the depth of the crowd’s joyous post game celebration.

Now, as a Yankee fan, I’ve been atop baseball’s annual Cloud Nine—let’s see now—ten times since 1954 when the New York Yankees became supreme in my baseball heart. Very few people, myself included, would categorize me as a rooter for the “underdog”. Since it’s unlikely that very many of us seated at the bar that late Sunday afternoon were everyday Giants or Patriots fans, our pleasure or displeasure over the result probably had more to do with the core things that bring us individual satisfaction than it had to do with either of the two teams.

As a Yankee fan, I applaud success, because the Yankees have been identified with success more than most professional sports teams (with the possible exceptions of hockey’s Montreal Canadians, and basketball’s Boston Celtics). The truth is that my pleasure over a successful Yankee World Series triumph primarily validates my sense of expectation. After all, I’ve never played or worked for the New York Yankees. I’ve certainly made little money as a result of the Yankees’ triumphs—although I did win a spaghetti dinner when the Yankees defeated the Brooklyn Dodgers in the 1956 World Series. For me, the success of the New York Yankees probably strengthens and renews that bond I had as a boy with my late Uncle Joe. Baseball and the Yankees were special to Uncle Joe and Uncle Joe was special to me and still is across “the veil of time,” as Winston Churchill might put it. For other fans, a sense of local pride often is what creates their bond with a sports hero or franchise.

As for our bond to entertainers, my guess is that we root for their success primarily due to our artistic or emotional response to the feelings they bring out in us. My youthful fondness for Elvis Presley was brought about by the excitement his voice and expression conveyed in me when he sang a song of intense love for, or loss of, someone or something special.

Our ties to political leaders have pretty much to do with our sense of self within America’s body politic. When I root for, or support, a politician, I do so not so much for his or her success, but for the success I perceive he or she might bring to the greatest number of people. Most of us have a political agenda that is connected to our emotional and spiritual orientation as well as to our needs and hopes for the future.

Did it matter much to me who won the Super Bowl this year? No, not really! What did matter that afternoon was the good beer, tasty food and, even more, pleasant company. I personally identified with the opportunity the Patriots had to achieve a perfect season. As a native of New York State I might have chosen to root for the Giants, as I do for the Yankees. However, when it comes to sports, more than anything else, I admire perseverance toward perfection under pressure.

As a student of history, I identify most with those who have sought opportunity and success for the greatest good. Hence I root—if you will—for the perpetuation of their decisions, deeds and lives.

As to what lies at the root of our decision of for whom to “root” in sports, at the Grammies, in politics, or in anything else, it really is our sense of self.

Nature and “Nature’s God” may dictate our racial makeup and nationality, our parents may form our core personal values and original religious convictions, but you and I do the rest according to our individual senses of well-being and satisfaction.

That’s okay with me! Whatever or whomever “floats your boat”, keep rooting for them!

RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED,

EDWIN COONEY