UCLA’s defeat evokes intense spirit typical of modern sports

  Mayar Zokaei Send comments and questions
to [email protected].

The pain was immense.

“It’s crushing, it’s very hard to
stomach,” UCLA’s Ryan Nece said. “It’s
something we have to deal with, whether it’s family, friends,
relatives. It’s something hovering over us.”

“It’s killing us,” Ricky Manning Jr.
added.

The feat was immortal.

“It’s easily the biggest moment of my life,”
David Bell said.

“David Bell is God,” Petros Papadakis said.

Read the previous lines without school attributions and you
might think David Bell had just performed a miracle surgery or
saved a family from a burning building and Petros Papadakis had
just given him a Nobel Prize.

Contemplate even further, and in the same context, you’d
probably conjure a picture in your mind of Ryan Nece and Ricky
Manning Jr. on their deathbeds, battling a fatal abdomen ailment,
while lamenting how difficult it will be for the 16 kids
they’ll leave behind.

Instead, the preceeding are extracts from the aftermath of
UCLA’s three-point loss to USC in the schools’ infamous
annual football rendezvous.

Though the quotes seem excessive, they dwarf in comparison to
the sentiments of the alumni, school administrators and other UCLA
supporters after the Bruins’ “embarrassing and shameful
loss,” according to one alumnus.

After the UCLA’s men’s basketball team’s loss
to Cal State Northridge last week, you would think we should hire
counselors to patrol the Morgan Center offices and surrounding
communities to be on suicide watch for all the clamoring by the
alumni.

And when you think about it some more, you’ll agree.
Sports are ironic, really, because something that was meant to let
little kids play and others enjoy themselves has turned into a
cutthroat way of life.

There is no denying that sports can imitate life, but I had a
recent epiphany, courtesy of several responses to my last column
(Nov. 9, “Lavin needs to get all those young players straight
or else), that made me realize that sports are becoming life.

And it’s serious stuff.

We live in a world where a writer who roasts his
university’s basketball team gets hate e-mail from people who
defend the squad so passionately, you would think they were either
married to the team or related to each player.

The majority of the readers and some of the members of the
basketball team took it as what it was ““ a joke. Others
didn’t realize that in our society, once you’re at the
top of your level, it’s a given that you’ll be
criticized, bashed and dissed.

And if someone can’t dog your game and has to get personal
instead, you should consider it a compliment.

It’s not just lifetime athletes who are overcome by these
corrupt phenomena. Even the journalists whose names grace these
pages are culpable.

Those of you who heard about the Daily Bruin-Daily Trojan
football game last Friday ““ also known as the “Blood
Bowl” ““ will attest to that. All the players just got a
little too into it, with accusations of cheating flying and with a
couple of Daily Bruin writers getting kicked off the field for
fighting. What was supposed to be a fun game between two college
newspapers turned ugly.

The extreme emphasis on sports starts at a young age. I
didn’t even pick up a basketball until I was 12, but I know
dozens of kids half that age who play in basketball leagues and are
more concerned with tracking their pee-wee stats than they are
about learning addition or the first five letters of the
alphabet.

Sports aren’t what they used to be or should be. Sports
are no longer just pastimes, friendships and fun. Sports are
business, hate, murder, self-abuse and serious. And worst of all,
sports are powerful.

Though only one moniker probably rings a bell for you, I will
never forget these names:

Mark McGwire and Andres Escobar.

McGwire will always be remembered as the baseball player who
took a supplement to aid his pursuit of a half-century old
record.

Escobar will always be remembered as the man killed because he
erred in a soccer match.

For the young Escobar’s mother, his loss is
unjustified.

For the people of Colombia, it was the malicious power of
sports, dubiously epitomized.

Sports are supposed to be an extension of life, not a factor in
extending or ending life.

They’re not about kids being so pressured to win
championships in the Little League World Series that their
vulnerability is manifested in the tears that trickle down their
pudgy cheeks on television.

They’re about showing little Mikey how to tie his cleats
when his mom doesn’t have time, and then maybe making the
park playoffs.

It shouldn’t be two kids barely old enough to shave trying
to lose 10 pounds in a week just so they can compete in a
lower-weight championship high school wrestling division.

It’s about two girls stuffing themselves with Krispy Kreme
doughnuts after their softball team wins its first game ““ in
the last one of the season.

Instead it’s about little Tommy trying to throw the
football farther than he can see it, even though his 11-year-old
shoulder is prematurely crackling like a 40-year-old’s
rotator cuff.

And it’s about my friend’s little brother Danny
learning to shoot a free throw with his left hand after a blood
clot forced amputation of his right one.

That’s pain.

Losing to your crosstown rival by a field goal isn’t.