Sunday Morning Ritual: Sports Are Sacred

So you lay there, with your stomach in a knot, motionless. The calls from your roommates don’t even earn a coherent response from you. If you decide to say anything, it really wouldn’t matter because it all comes out sounding like a bad radio signal. To your roommates, you might as well have not said anything.
As you lay there in the warmth of your comforter, you try to assemble your Sunday hangover survival kit.
Your phone, if you get the power to turn over and find it, is a remnant of last night’s successes and losses. Full with texts that you didn’t want to see, texts you accidentally sent, texts you don’t even understand or a combination of all three. Your next move, you move your arm around the bed, hoping, almost begging the remote to be in arm’s reach.
The simple energy to get up and pick it off the table, floor or wherever it is is not something you possess at this moment. If you’re lucky, the remote isn’t too far and at least you have your basics — your phone, so you can call your friends to see what exactly happened the night before, and your remote, so you can follow your favorite football team.
Ah, for many of you, this Sunday sequence of events isn’t a rare occurrence. It’s religion. I haven’t taken part in this most beloved of rituals in a minute, but I, in a way, cherish those mornings. That time alone in that bed is almost sacred.
Throughout the week, you are bombarded with problem sets, nagged with the responsibilities of e-mail, studying for prelims, trying to do work and all that. By the time Friday afternoon, or Thursday afternoon if you’re trying to get busy, comes along, all you want is a drink, some type of relief from this cold place called Ithaca.
But on this Sunday morning, you’ve done yourself in. The last thing you want to do is toss back a shot. You’ll be damned if your thoughts switch to an assignment due in the upcoming week. All that matters for those first couple hours after you wake up is who’s playing? When are they playing? And how much longer you can get away with being lazy.
It is there, in that exact moment, where college is defined. After a week of being — or trying to be — studious leads to a weekend of drinking and socializing, followed by a strong inability to make any movements, it all concludes with a heavy interest in television while pushing back thoughts of any upcoming academic responsibilities.
Mind you, you are only hours removed from heading back to the library. You know what school you go to, you can only get away with this behavior for so long before it bites you back. But those few hours, where nothing else matters … simply irreplaceable. Even though the thoughts of being hungover are never comforting, those few hours in bed — my television and I — makes me feel right at home.
Finally, happy b-day shout-out to KG. Your prowess over the summer at playing the wing position will always be appreciated. The key to the game: you were always a threat as an initiator and a finisher …. Pass or Shoot, either way somebody is getting buckets.