Sports grief is real. Let’s talk about it

When Michael Jordan faced Karl Malone and John Stockton in the 1998 NBA Championship for the second straight year, I was fortunate enough to be situated in the perfect place: very far away.
As a Latter-day Saint missionary in Brazil, I heard the news of Jordan’s shot — a last second dagger-to-the-heart-of-Jazz-fandom — as my companion and I walked down the dusty streets, long before the first person accounts of heartbreak showed up from dispirited family members weeks later.
It helped to be immersed in sharing some really good news with people around me. After returning home, I joked that at the time, family members seemed to be carrying more grief over the Jazz’s second defeat by the Bulls in the finals than even discovering my brother’s cancer.
The mushroom cloud of disappointment seemed to hang over Utah for weeks. Even with all the good times watching “the Mailman” deliver with some assistance from Stockton’s wizardry (including the epic triple overtime win over the Bulls in 1992), that wasn’t an unfamiliar feeling for long-time Jazz fans. I’ll never forget the 1993-94 season when Jordan temporarily retired — opening a nice one year window. The Jazz had a 10 point lead in the 4th quarter to the Houston Rockets, which would have ushered them into an easy-win championship.
Instead, they blew the lead and the Rockets went on to win it all. “Maybe this is divine retribution for how many fans watched that game on a Sunday?” I remember honestly wondering as a boy. After one especially gutting Jazz loss in another season, I came to my dad in tears and heard some of the best advice he ever gave me.
Opening the scriptures of our faith, the Book of Mormon, Dad paraphrased 2 Nephi 4: “O Lord, I have trusted in thee, and I will trust in thee forever. I will not put my trust in the arm of Karl Malone; for I know that cursed is he that putteth his trust in the arm of flesh. Yea, cursed is he that putteth his trust in man or maketh flesh his arm.”
As silly as that may sound to some, it comforted the ache in my little boy heart immediately. I really did need it. Not too long before, I lay on the floor watching BYU’s men’s basketball team miss a last second shot. I burst out crying — knowing I’d have to face some trash talking from my Ute-fan friends at school the next day.
Sports grief is real. And not just in response to sports injuries or retirement from a game.
Counselor Anthony Centore writes about “sports fan depression” after significant losses. Albeit not a formally recognized mental health condition, he describes how intense emotional connections to a team can naturally lead game outcomes to “profoundly affect” fans’ emotional state.
BYU and Utah have each had their own acute reasons for grief this football season, with the Utes facing their longest losing streak in many years, and the Cougars dreams of football glory coming back down to the telestial sphere over the past two weeks.
One huge basketball fan described how his boss offered “bereavement days” after his Denver Nuggets lost in the playoffs last year — along with encouragement to apply Elisabeth Kulber-Ross’s stages of grief. This famously begins with the denial stage of “this can’t be happening” or “we’ll still find a way” — a phase that even seems permanent with some fans (“we’re still the best in the country — no matter what they say!”).
For the rest of us, it’s natural in a grieving process to feel some anger (in this case, towards players, coaches, referees, or themselves) along with ruminating about “what if” scenarios (“if only that player had done this … if only this coach had done that”). Unfortunately, this has led sometimes in the past to verbal lashings out against a player or coach online, the burning of jerseys or even veiled threats or desires to see someone hurt.
A sense of emptiness, lost interest in other games and disinterest in other activities can sometimes follow — a real period of the “sports blues.” Eventually, this can be followed by acceptance, especially after you’ve been beaten as a team sufficiently that, as Amber Lee writes, “taking it on the chin is the only remaining option.”
At this point, many fans “come to terms” with the loss — beginning to appreciate again positive things about the season, exploring how the team can improve and looking forward to other good things about the team’s future.
Counselor Leanne Dorish encourages people to “remember how much fun your team has given you over the season and what kinds of laughs you had. Try to reminisce about what happened during the joyful and happy times during the season and what you’ll always remember about this particular year.”
For me, the excitement of a Ty Detmer-led Cougar victory over #1 Miami in the 1990 season is still a fun memory, with their later bowl defeat more of an afterthought.
At some point, fans can become more reflective on what it means to be a fan and connected to their team — leading to a “renewed, perhaps more balanced, passion for the sport and team.” In other words, people can rethink how much heart and emotion they want to put into this in the future.
Dr. Centore recommends “taking a step back” to get a broader perspective that puts the loss in its “rightful place.” Taylor Bennett also describes the emotional value of reflecting again on “what’s really important in your life” and learning a “healthy distance” from spectator sports — perhaps opting for “a more relaxed and lighthearted” fandom that reiterates the classic mantra: “it’s just a game.”
In coaching my boys’ basketball and soccer teams, I’ve come to see these lessons from losing are some of the best things to come from sports. Where else do boys and girls learn over and over the importance of humility, grace, tolerance and respect for adversaries?
Such emotional resilience is very helpful for fans, especially since statistically speaking there’s far more losing than winning when it comes to championships. Out of 134 teams in Division one college football, for instance, precisely one will win the championship this year — with only 33 teams winning a championship since 1936. And out of 352 division one men’s and women’s basketball programs, only 68 famously make the final tournament, with only one coming out on top.
Yet during graduate school when my Fighting Illini lost to North Carolina in the 2005 championship game, the team’s surprising success still yielded something else worth celebrating. There was a stunning degree of unity in our otherwise divided campus town like nothing else I had ever seen before. Orange was everywhere!
Out of 32 NFL teams, 12 have never won a Super Bowl — including 2 long-time teams that have never even been (Lions and Browns), and 2 that have been there four times without winning (Bills and Vikings). Likewise, out of 30 NBA teams, 10 have never won a championship – including two who have made it to the finals twice (Jazz) and three times (Suns).
A bit more realism at the difficulty of winning a championship might benefit us all. After calling Karl Malone and John Stockton “easily the best tandem never to get crowned,” Shaun Powell suggested this is “unfathomable, really, because with those two all-time greats, the Jazz were true contenders for roughly a dozen years.”
In a perfect world, long-suffering fans might wish for a little more parity to spread around the championship magic (I mean, 6 rings really, Jordan? 15 titles, Celtics? 18 championships Alabama? 6 Super Bowls Patriots?). Powell notes that while the Lakers have 17 titles, the other team in the city, the Clippers “would be overjoyed with just one.”
For some teams with long histories of losing, like the Cleveland Browns, grief is sometimes described as a “perpetual state of being.” We never watched NFL football in our family, since its ritualistic celebration overlapped too much with our Sabbath. But I do remember feeling empathy for Jim Kelly and Bill fans, after they lost their fourth Super Bowl in a row in 1994.
If you want to learn how to lose well, spend some time with Denver Nuggets superstar Nicola Jokić — a stoic philosopher disguised as an NBA player, who likes to say after a loss, “you win some games, and you lose some games.” After the post-game press conference following one of his biggest losses in the playoffs last year, he shared all of the following: “If someone beats you, they’re the better team … Some teams never win the championship … You just need to be basically perfect to win a championship … We gave our best… If you want to win, you need to make shots.”
When asked whether external factors had caused the loss, he always pushed back. “Was it the team’s exhaustion?” one reporter wondered. “It wasn’t for the other team,” he said quickly. “Sometimes it’s a lucky bounce, sometimes they want it more, sometimes we want it more. I think that’s why basketball is great, you never know what’s going to happen.”
The agony of sporting defeat as a fan isn’t the same for me anymore. Something shifted inside of me eventually. In the middle of another raucous conversation about Jazz prospects for the postseason at a family dinner, my brother-in-law turned to my wife, “what do you think, Monique?”
Put on the spot, she went full transparency: “I think, it matters … not at all.”
Everyone laughed at her brutal honesty. She’s probably right … mostly. But I do think she’s still missing something important. It’s precisely the fact that sport outcomes don’t matter as much, compared with the other weighty things on our shoulders, that can make games such a relieving focus, at least for a moment. Within healthy bounds, that’s probably also good for our mental health. And from a community standpoint, coming together to support a common team is part of the magic of sports.
When some waves of Cougar fan grief hit me these recent weeks, some of this stoic, spartan philosophy did help cleanse the palate. “Hey, you’ve got to play like a champion to win championships.” I watch games mostly now to enjoy time with my boys and appreciate great performances, wherever and whenever they come.
In the meanwhile, we try to spread out the love. Joshua roots for the Celtics, William for the Warriors, Joseph for the Suns, and Sam for the Lakers … except when they play the Jazz. When we don’t have some positive highlights from the Aggies and Cougars to enjoy, we love going down the street to cheer on our local Mt. Crest Mustangs — witnessing up close the youthful intensity of athletes leaving it all on the court as they do their very best, without having to pay a fortune.
“Did you see how that guy kept shooting after he missed his first 5 shots, guys?” After watching their JV squad eke out a last minute win last week, my boy Joseph said “that was even funner than a Jazz game.”
We’re a a long ways from the glory days of our Utah Jazz heritage. But in my home, we’re having more fun than ever.