The What If-ness Of It All
More than one person has asked me why I’m doing this. A thing you should know about me is I like to conduct small science experiments on my life. What if I read everything by James Baldwin? What if I try to like opera? What if I eat a lot of jellybeans? “What If” is a frequent question in my life. One thing I’ve learned is that “Why?” is an irrelevant question for me. The Why of something has both never mattered much to me and never been important to know. But when a What If gets in my head, I know I should follow it and see where it goes, especially the ones that seem to come from out of nowhere.
At some point last fall, I had a new What If. What if I watched a lot of Warriors games? At that point, I had watched every game so far without trying. The Warriors started the season strong and that made it easy to develop a habit. I was looking forward to games. Suddenly I could name ten Warriors.
That’s when this idea started of watching all Warriors games. Making it a New Year’s Resolution that started in November.
Now, to be clear, I was already watching a lot of basketball but not in the NBA. For years now, I’ve seen every University of Michigan men’s game and nearly every nationally televised UConn women’s or men’s game. And that doesn’t count March Madness, aka, my favorite time of the year. Adding 82 Warriors games seemed a little…intense? Some people even suggested a little pointless. As in…think of all you could do in your life if you weren’t watching so much basketball. To those people I would say: All my life people have said to do what you love. I love watching basketball. So I’m gonna do it.
And I had a very unproven theory (i.e. science experiment) that staying consistent at this—watching every game instead of most games would be good for me, a way to see something through to the finish. Finishing is not my strength. I love starting things. Almost starting things is also fun. Finishing is often a drag. So why not try it with something that I think would be fun?
Last year I learned that even with a team as entertaining as the Warriors, watching every game takes resolve. Some games are not that interesting. Some games it’s clear they are going to lose. Some games they are winning so big that the 4th quarter would be easy to skip out on. And then there’s me. I have a chronic illness that has tricks up its sleeve. Some nights I’m so tired it’s hard to follow what’s going on. Some nights I have a migraine so fierce that watching basketball is painful. Most of last year’s season I saw very few people in real life, but I saw the Warriors 1-3 times every week, the most regular presence in my life.
Although I came close, I didn’t watch every game.
So this year, I’m going to do it for real. All the games. Rain or shine, migraine or not. Not just to say “I did it!”. But to take the ride and write about it so I don’t forget the journey. It’s about the joy. It’s about the slog. It’s about supporting my team. It’s about getting up day after day and showing up for something. Or maybe it’s about something else entirely. The season starts in less than 3 weeks. What if I saw every Warriors game and wrote about it?