There is NO crying in sports....... or is there?

     Hello, my name is Tim Ghiorso and I am a 19-year-old college student. This is my first attempt at writing a blog. So bear with me. The reason I have decided to write this is because I am a sports FANATIC.  So can you guess what my favorite conversation topic is? I talk about other stuff too (if any women are reading this, don’t write me off already) When it comes to sports debates I have a pretty big ego. Most of the time I believe that I am right and you are wrong, but come on? Dosen’t everyone feel that way.

     

       I was watching ESPN today and didn’t realize it, but this week is Jimmy V week. No not Bobby V, the new Red Sox manager, it kinda confused me for a sec too. If you call yourself a sports fan, the mention of Jimmy V should immediately stir up some sort of emotion inside of you. Jimmy Valvano is most remembered for his speech after receiving the Arthur Ashe Award at the ESPY’S. They show it a lot on ESPN especially during Jimmy V week. It is one of the most motivating, emotional and personal speeches ever given in the sports world. If you have not seen it before I recommend you go watch it on YouTube right away. In his speech he spoke about his organization, the Jimmy V Foundation and his personal fight with cancer. He talked about some of his experiences coaching and people he worked with like Coach K and Dick Vitale. But he also spoke about how we should get the most out of every day and live life to the fullest. Here is an excerpt from the speech, 

“To me, there are three things we all should do every day. We should do this every day of our lives. Number one is laugh. You should laugh every day. Number two is think. You should spend some time in thought. And number three is, you should have your emotions moved to tears, could be happiness or joy. But think about it. If you laugh, you think, and you cry, that's a full day. That's a heck of a day. You do that seven days a week, you're going to have something special”

     Now I have probably seen the Jimmy V speech about a gazillion times, but it still brought me to tears. This spurred my title, is there crying in sports?   Yes there is, and I am going to give a list of top 5 moments in sports I have cried about, but before I do let me clarify something.  CRYING DURING A SPORTING EVENT IS UNACCEPTABLE!! Fan or Player, unless you are hurt badly and in pain.  As a fan and player I have had myself a good cry after a tough loss or even a great win…. Key word AFTER.

I had an experience one time on my high school soccer team when one of our best players started crying DURING the game because the other team was playing “too physical” Are you kidding me?!!!! you cry when you are 6 years old during a game because you don't know which direction to go in. Not in freaking high school!  Get off the field crybaby!!!!

    I think the only time I can remember a Pro athlete crying during a game was when Kevin Garnett, Forward for Boston Celtics was ripping his teammate Glen Davis. Garnett was just tearing into him on the bench because he messed up on the court. Glen Davis also known by his nickname as Big Baby Davis (very fitting) was crying into his towel on the bench. How embarrassing!

    

Here are my top 5 sports moments as a fan, viewer or player that have made me shed some tears

1.Watching Brian’s Song…..all I can say is WOW, this movie is powerful and so sad. It’s a true story about the famous Chicago running back Gale Sayers and his teammate named Brian Piccolo.  I literally bawled my eyes out (not exaggerating)

2. Jimmy V speech…… my grandpa died of cancer a couple years ago, most people are touched by this because cancer effects everyone

3. Reggie White speech…..most people don’t know about this one. Reggie White was giving his testimony to a stadium full of people in Philadelphia. He played for Eagles before he played for Packers. Jerome Brown was a DT that played with Reggie on Eagles, this guy had made 2 All-Pro teams and the Eagles were a Super Bowl contender. In his 5th year in the league, he was killed in a car accident 20 minutes before Reggie White was supposed to share his testimony. Reggie got word of this before he got on stage and broke the news to all the people there. I am literally getting goosebumps just talking about it. Watch it

4. Pretty much any ESPN film, E:60 or segment on sportscenter (they do a really good job)

A recent one that brought me to tears was called “Unguarded”  about a former NBA player named Chris Herren. Drugs and alcohol cut his basketball career short and almost ripped his family apart. 

 

5. And now a personal experience………I was playing in an indoor soccer league and our team was playing for the championship. The team we were playing was one we had beaten before, except this time something was different. There team looked bigger, faster and stronger. Then we realized they have like 8 new college level players. We only lost 6-2, but we were physically and emotionally dominated. Our team was cheated. That boiled over in our Flag Football league about half hour later when our team lost and I dropped multiple passes. I came home almost in tears and at 10 at night I went for a run to blow off steam. I broke down in the middle of a random neighborhood and cried.

Im going to throw in a 6^th:  When my Green Bay Packers won the Super Bowl, I was overcome with happiness and shed a few tears while all my friends and I were jumping around going crazy. See YouTube video for that

So is there crying in sports?  The answer: Absolutely, but save it until after the game Please!!!!!

Do you have an memories of a moment in sports; of a personal experience or something you watched that brought you to tears?

comment below if you do I would love to read about it

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