‘A nation of sports junkies’: America’s addiction

Editor’s note: This is the second of a three-part series taking an in-depth look at… Editor’s note: This is the second of a three-part series taking an in-depth look at the psychology of sports fans. Read part one and part three.

Ron Steedle was in a hurry. He left his job selling wallpaper in East Liberty at 5 p.m. He ran errands, which included stops at home and his mother’s house, and then he headed Downtown. He needed to be there by 6:30 and beat the rush-hour traffic.

When he finally made it Downtown, he hurried into Mellon Arena and took a seat.

When the chaos of his day settled, he soon found himself out of his seat and celebrating — with 17,000 others.

Evgeni Malkin had just ripped the puck into the net about a minute into the game, and from his seats in the F level, where fans can literally touch the roof, Steedle felt the joy of witnessing his team score in front of the home crowd.

But that nosebleed joy costs him $2,200 per year, and chaotic days are the norm. Steedle is one of the few Pittsburghers with Penguins, Pirates and Steelers season tickets.

Starting in April, he attends a game nearly every other night when the Pirates start playing again.

He dreads the few occasions in which his inability to be in two places at once means he has to skip a Pirates game to attend a Penguins playoff game. Last year, the Penguins played well into June as the team made a run to win the Stanley Cup. Because of this, Steedle was only able to make it to 73 of the Pirates’ 81 home games last year, though he made it to every Penguins and Steelers game.

He is certainly dedicated to Pittsburgh sports, but he refuses to call himself a fan.

“I hate the word ‘fan.’ It’s short for fanatical,” he said. “I’m devoted, but I’m not fanatical.”

He doesn’t go crazy in the stands. He simply enjoys the game because he loves sports. The definition of “fan” might be debatable, but the presence of sports in society is not.

Sports are a focal point in American society, and the sporting industry is one of the most robust and wealthy in the country. They are omnipresent in our lives. Think of all the references in non-sports-related conversations — “The president came out swinging today …” or “She knocked it out of the park with that performance.”

But if sports are just games for grownups, is there a point where a constant focus on games becomes detrimental? Ken Boas, who teaches a Literature of Sports class at Pitt, said society has already reached that point.

He said he doesn’t think the games themselves are the problem, but the consumerism that has developed over the years which has turned America into a “nation of sports junkies.”

“Many people in this country are discontented,” he said. “They are in debt, repressed at work and just trapped. Sports become like a drug,” he said. “We can’t find the satisfaction we crave in our own lives, so we turn to sports.”

But he understands why these “sports junkies” love athletics. Boas enjoys sports himself.

“We get to see the purity of human potential being realized,” he said. “The perfection of physical form in a game we all know is a vicarious pleasure. When you are watching, you are locked into this moment of perfection.”

Boas grew up playing baseball and football, and he still loves to watch a good ball game. He has attended Pirates games his whole life, including when the team played at Forbes Field.

“I still love the purity of the game, but they make it very hard,” he said, citing the many problems of sports — which he teaches in his class.

Students are often surprised to learn his Literature of Sports class isn’t all happy endings and buzzer beaters. The day of this interview, Boas was preparing to teach his class about racism in baseball. He also discusses the media’s role in sports.

“The media has such control over what teams are able to do,” he said, adding that this is what leads to the drug-like culture of sports.

There are more sports and more all-sports channels. The media feed this sports demand, he said, leading to an even higher demand. This creates an endless cycle of increasing supply and demand.

But sports psychologist Stephen Russo said calling sports a drug is a little extreme.

Russo, a former Pitt professor, works as the director of sports psychology at Nova Southeastern University in Fort Lauderdale, Fla. He said a drug addiction implies that there is a dependency. There are often emotional responses to wins and losses, but these are because of allegiances and identity, not because of dependency, he said.

“There is a long history in the human experience of watching and spectating,” Russo said, citing ancient Roman chariot races and Greek Olympiads.

In modern times, he said, fans take it one step further and start to identify with athletes and teams.

“People literally have an identity with the team,” he said. “They feel like they are more involved than they actually are.”

Think of the use of the word “we.” Fans frequently say “we won” rather than “they won.”

“People feel better when the team wins and the opposite when the team loses,” he said.

This is a natural response, but the strength of the response comes down to how strongly fans identify with the team.  Russo even offered an explanation as to why Pittsburghers identify so strongly with the Steelers.

“The very name of the Steelers means a lot. There’s a historical connotation of the steel mills and all the things that transpired in that city,” he said.

He said studies have proven people’s happiness and satisfaction can be linked to the outcome of a game.

“When their teams don’t succeed, they feel negative about not only things associated with sports but things in their life, as well,” he said, and those emotions can be somewhat addictive, which is one of the reasons people return to sports.

Steedle keeps coming back. He has been involved in sports since he was a child growing up in the ’60s. He said he hails from “the greatest generation in Pittsburgh sports history.”

“I’ve witnessed all the Super Bowls, all the Stanley Cups and almost all of the World Series championships,” Steedle said.

He started coaching baseball when he was in high school. He coached for 38 years, and he coached youth hockey for 31 years. He was also an umpire throughout that span. He’s held season tickets all the while, and based on his calculations, he has attended more than 2,000 games between the Penguins, Pirates and Steelers.

Steedle doesn’t “totally disagree” that sports are addictive, although he doesn’t put himself in the sports-addicted category.

He said he prides himself in not letting his emotions get the best of him at games.

“Having gone to so many games, when crunch time comes in a championship game or something, I keep control of my emotions,” he said. “I don’t live and die with the wins and losses, but some people get a little too worked up.”

Steedle admitted that he did overreact when he was younger, but he became “more jaded” as he aged.

“You see athletes committing felonies and still getting paid millions of dollars,” he said. “Then you realize that they are flawed human beings just like everyone else.”

He does, however, admit to one addiction: commitment.

Steedle has no kids, is single and has never married, but he is committed to “going the whole nine yards with the team.”

“When I spend money for season tickets, I’m committed,” he said. “I don’t buy tickets just to sell them. I buy them to go to the games.”

Boas warned against this kind of commitment.

“People don’t get as passionate with their spouses as they do at a football game,” Boas said. “We need to wonder about that. Rather than find an answer, we need to just ask the questions.”

We need to ask questions such as how healthy an offseason-only relationship is for marriages, Boas said.

Boas also pointed out the “ugly reality” of fathers at Little League Baseball games.

“We have fathers screaming at kids when they miss a fly ball or strike out,” he said. “That is antithetical to what sports are all about.”

But Boas said while sports can mirror the successes in life, they also mirror the failures.

“Sports are a microcosm of our entire society. All the forces at work in a game work in some way in our lives,” he said. “The problems in society are often the same problems in sports.”