“What is going on in sports?”

That was the question posed by a SportsCenter anchor while reflecting on one of the most amazing weeks in sports.

After all, Michael Jordan came back, the hated Yankees and more-hated Bears made two historic comebacks, and one of the best World Series of all time ended with an unbelievable Game 7.

Making things even better were victories by the Badgers, Packers and Bucks.

So why is this column not on the sports page? More fundamentally, why do sports matter?

The fact the Diamondbacks won makes absolutely no difference in the larger scheme of things. I would say this war thing going on is a bit more important. Heck, even the Student Service Finance Committee is more important, at least on a tangible level (SSFC decisions cost me money — World Series decisions do not). Academics definitely will have a much greater impact on my future than sports ever will.

Yet I spent Sunday night watching a baseball game with a group of friends, instead of absorbing idle chatter from “experts” on news-talk television, attending an SSFC meeting or studying for class.

The most obvious reason is that watching baseball is a whole lot more fun (at least for me).

But the value of sports goes beyond simply satisfying a selfish urge. Sports are essential.

***

“If you could remove all suffering from the world, would you do it?”

For most people, the knee-jerk reaction to this question would be “Of course!”

But what if there were no suffering — could there be any joy? Can there be mountains without valleys?

Obviously I am discussing abstracts far deeper than sports. And that’s precisely the point. Can there be important things in life unless there are unimportant things as well?

When I was young, I marveled at how important each week’s Green Bay Packer game was to my father. After all, he was a minister at the time and every Sunday there was something more important going on in his life. Even today, as a counselor my father deals with people and issues far more important than the successes or failures of a group of millionaires he will never meet, yet his anticipation for each week’s game has not ebbed.

I finally got a glimpse of why this was so.

I had never worked a regular full-time schedule until last summer. But after putting in nine hours a day plus two hours commuting, I discovered a strange phenomenon — my interest in the Packers had skyrocketed.

Keep in mind this was just preseason. Yet every day during my lunch break I would scour the Internet for reports on training camp and read every NFL preview I could get my hands on. My excitement for the regular season was unprecedented.

And then my internship ended and my life returned to the relative utopia of a college student (seriously, we have got it so good). Simultaneously, my obsession with the Packers returned to normal. I was still excited, but the preseason was not that big a deal.

The meaning of this phenomenon coalesced for me as I watched the amazing ninth-inning rally by the Diamondbacks in the World Series.

My last few weeks in school and at work had been particularly stressful, and sports had become an afterthought.

But as my favorite mode of relaxation faded into the background, I found my enthusiasm for the bigger things in life fading as well. Studying for a favorite class was a drag. Work I loved became a duty. Issues I thought important seemed insignificant.

I had lost perspective. Usually this happens in the opposite direction. People become so obsessed with the insignificant they forget the larger picture. But in my case I was seeing the forest for the trees, and it was just a big ol’ blob.

You cannot turn commitment and passion on and off. But to focus solely on what is “important” is to lose sight of why it is so important. And with a perceived loss of significance comes a loss of passion.

For me, sports functions as both an outlet and perspective. For others, their “sports” may be art, books or some other hobby, or simply enjoying the company of friends.

But whatever it may be, it is essential, for importance cannot exist absent unimportance.

Benjamin Thompson ([email protected]) is a senior majoring in political science.