I was crushed, although not surprised, when the Chicago Cubs imploded down the stretch to miss the playoffs this past season. I was nearly inconsolable when the Wisconsin football team lost its perfect season in East Lansing. I was on the verge of panic when the Badger men’s hockey team got swept by the Gophers up in Minneapolis.

I have, for most of my life, been a sports addict — one that lives with my favorite teams’ wins and dies with their losses. I overreact to defeats and find nitpicky little problems in triumphs that are closer than expected.

Basically, I’m an average, run-of-the-mill, completely crazed sports fan.

Well, I was, until last Friday. That’s when I was diagnosed with cancer and, all of a sudden, perspective was forced upon me. All of a sudden, it didn’t matter who won the game. All of a sudden, sports went from “life, the rest is just details” to a minor distraction in the background.

I didn’t get too excited when the hockey team played poorly in dropping the first game to Minnesota State this past weekend. I felt pretty ho-hum about the men’s basketball team falling apart at Marquette. In fact, not only was I not on the edge of despair after the Badgers fell to the Golden Eagles, but I couldn’t even muster the negative attitude necessary to complain about how unbelievable Travis Diener was in the game.

I must be sick.

While I’ve gained some serious perspective about how important, or rather unimportant, sports really are in the grand scheme of things, I’ve also learned that it can be an incredible diversion from a bleak reality and an inspiration for hope.

If it hadn’t been for SportsCenter’s seemingly endless run into the wee hours of the night/morning, I may never have been able to distract myself for long enough to get any sleep. Instead of worrying about how my life had just been shaken like a snow-globe, I fell to sleep, albeit briefly, thinking about Hot Stove League baseball rumors and the highlights of a “big night in the NBA.”

While I’ve been consumed by cancer, I’ve been afforded these brief two- or three-hour breaks. I can relax in my recliner and escape in a basketball or hockey game. Sure, the escape would have felt more vacation-like had Wisconsin found a way to beat Marquette, but it was still more than two hours that I didn’t have to think about or deal with my situation.

While the distractions have been much needed, what sports really has produced for me is inspiration.

One needs look no further than this very campus where the football team is led by Erasmus James. When he first hurt his hip, there was a chance that he would never play football again. Instead, he not only made it back onto the field of play, but he became one of the best defenders in the entire country.

If that doesn’t seem inspiring enough, take a look at last year’s hockey team, which was captained by Dan Boeser. Shortly before his junior year, Boeser was diagnosed with cancer. He not only beat the disease, but he was back on the ice helping the Badgers soon after.

If Boeser was able to get back out there and play after having cancer, I sure hope that I can at least get back out there and write about hockey.

Those examples are just from the University of Wisconsin in the past year and a half. Extend the scope even further and there are a plethora of feel-good stories throughout sports. From Lance Armstrong and Mario Lemieux returning from their battles with cancer to the top of their respective sports to Marquette assistant coach Trey Schwab, who endured a double lung transplant while maintaining his position as a coach for the Golden Eagles, there is no shortage of happy endings that I hope to replicate.

If all those success stories aren’t enough, there is the hope that the Boston Red Sox provided this past fall. While I have no strong feelings about the Sox, they proved that the Cubs could one day provide a magical curse-busting season as well. The thought of that taking place and me not being around to enjoy it — well, it’s just unbearable. If nothing else, I have to beat cancer so that I don’t go through life without seeing the Cubs win the World Series.

That may seem petty, but it’s a goal, and I need goals right now. I need that little spark of motivation so that I can see, or at least imagine, some glimmer of light at the end of what appears to be a long, dark tunnel.

There is no denying that sports has, and will forever, provide the motivation to fight through some of the toughest odds imaginable. While many of those little battles seem fairly insignificant to what I’m about to go through, without sports I wouldn’t know how to handle anything that has happened to me over the course of the last few weeks, let alone what will happen to me in the months ahead.

Without sports, I would have no hope.