My dad hates sports. He doesn’t hate that people play sports, my brothers and I were involved in sports from a young age, he hates how the world puts athletes on a pedestal. How much money is involved in sports. Growing up we weren’t really allowed to watch professional sports. Not just because my dad didn’t like it, but because most sporting events happened on Sundays. Growing up Mormon, we weren’t allowed to watch TV on Sundays.
It wasn’t until I left for Iraq at the age of 20 that I really started to pay attention to professional sports. I was in Baghdad, the first time I’d ever left my home country. I was in a hostile, foreign place, desperate for a connection to home.
Growing up, the Cincinnati Bengals (NFL) had been a horrible team. But that year in 2005-2006 the team was finally good, pushing for the playoffs. There was a buzz back home in Cincinnati about the team. I started downloading replays of the games on iTunes whenever we had reliable internet. That’s when I learned the power of sports to connect people, even when on the opposite side of the planet.
Flash forward twelve years to 2018, where I once again find myself on the other side of the planet. World Cup fever has grasped a nation passionate for the sport yet embroiled in a bribery scandal exposed by investigative journalist Anas and his group Tiger Eye. As we’ve crisscrossed the country, one thing has stuck out to me. I see sports jerseys everywhere.
Back home, you never really see people wearing jerseys, unless they’re going to a watch party or a game. It becomes your way of connecting to that community. We all wear Bengals jerseys when we’re together in Cincinnati, physically at the game. A show of solidarity. Four years ago when the USA was playing in the World Cup, I would join my fellow American Outlaws huddled around a TV, decked out in our USA jerseys. Solidarity. One Nation, one team, was the slogan. But sports jerseys seem to represent something different here.
Unless you have some connection to Ohio, you probably have no clue where it is. Ohio is a nowhere place, with nothing of note coming from there since the Wright Brothers. My junior year of high school was the first time I’d ever heard of this kid in Akron, a year older than me, he was going to be the next big thing in basketball. When his school played against mine everyone freaked out. I couldn’t care less. LeBron James is now one of the biggest superstars on the planet. I never would have imagined that I’d see Cleveland Cavaliers gear all over the world. These people have no clue where Ohio is, yet I see it everywhere in Ghana. It blows my mind.
That’s when it clicked, these jerseys help people connect to an outside world. It makes them part of a bigger community. Sure, many people probably just wear the jerseys because they think they look cool (that happens everywhere) but it also exposes smaller communities to the rest of the world. Sports becomes a selling point, a marketing campaign for places like Ohio, or Manchester UK, Dortmund Germany. People in Ghana may not know that the UK is comprised of four different countries (England, Wales, Scotland, Northern Ireland) but they sure know where Manchester is, and whether they support United or City.
There’s nothing like sports. I can think of only a few other things that unite people like sports. It gets a community to come together, even if just for a few hours, forgetting their differences and uniting in one voice. And as I gaze out of the bus window, seeing countless sports jerseys from countless places, I can’t help but see the world becoming smaller and smaller. One unified community that may disagree on many things, but at least sports can be a reprieve. Even if only for a couple hours.