by Henry L. Liao
As a young kid, I was a dyed-in-the-wool Yco fan. Every time the Redshirts/Painters lost, I felt great sadness, and sulk, unable to smile or eat some of the best dishes that momma had cooked for us a family of eight.
Then, as I grew older—way, way older—to get married and have a family of my own, I realized that watching basketball games, though still enjoyable, doesn’t affect my daily life or my ability to put food on the table for the family.
From then on, as a hoops fan, I have taken a pragmatic view of basketball watching.
Play the game. Enjoy the game. But don’t sulk about basketball results. That’s because basketball is just a game, certainly not a game of life. After all, honestly, and in reality, it does not affect your daily life.
If your favorite team loses, none of that should affect you in real life. I am making P325,000 a month for the family, do I take home less money because the Warriors or Lakers lost today? And if I earn P15,000 a month working abroad, does it jack up my salary because the Celtics won today?
Unless, of course, you are into betting. Then again, it’s like you win some and lose some. Nothing else.
But the amount of your paycheck that the wife takes seriously into accounting (bilang na bilang pa nga) does not change even if LeBron’s Lakers or Curry’s Warriors or Tatum’s Celtics lose an NBA game or two.
That’s why anybody that says basketball simply is just a game, and crying like a river just because the basketball results don’t point in your direction is a no-no, is handling basketball game-watching the right way.
Generally, losing is part of life, you can fail or succeed. But for hoops fans, the correct attitude is to absorb basketball results as such and move on – for it does not matter in our daily lives.
No sour grapes or sound gripes here, the results of a basketball game are just entertainment results.
If and when the Lakers lose again tomorrow in Minnesota, I would still bring home my P325,000 monthly salary to my wife on Labor Day, May 1. No more, no less. (Remember, she’s counting them.)
And she would not care less – as every other hoops fan should – if the Celtics bounce back to take care of the Magic and go up, 3-1, or if the Bucks even up the series at 2-2 with a win over the Pacers.
Basketball, after all, is just a game for entertainment, not a game of life.
And as the late Inday Badiday once said, it’s the truth and nothing but the truth.
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