"Are you a sports fan?"
It's an innocuous question, one that usually prompts a benign response. For author and comedian Sara Benincasa, considering the roots of her admittedly limited fandom brought on tears.
I'd invited Benincasa on my "That's What She Said" podcast after reading her hilarious, viral piece "Why Am I So Fat?" Her interest in sports was immaterial to the invite, but I was curious -- even more so when the topic churned up such emotion.
"I was raised on sports metaphors; you know?" she said. "For somebody who doesn't follow sports that closely I feel weirdly comfortable in a sports-related environment. My dad was a Yankees fan, which was a great thing to be when I was growing up. And he was a Jets fan, which has never been a great thing to be, except maybe in 1969."
"I'll cry if I talk about my dad," she continued, doing that sort of half-laughing, half-crying thing a person does when they're surprised by their own emotions. "I talk to my friend Peggy O'Leary, who will laugh at this, because she comes from an Eagles family. And we talk about the value of losing and, like, growing up with loss. It teaches you something that sports is about. Sorry I'm crying! Oh my God!"
"Yeah, why are you crying?" I asked.
"I'm also laughing, like a hysterical person," said Benincasa. "I think it's about my dad. I love my dad a lot."
"Is he still with us?"
"He is! He's super not dead! I think I just appreciate the value of somebody loving losers. Just knowing they're going to break your heart. They're always going to break your heart. It's always going to happen...And he still does it."
It turns out, even if you're not really a sports fan -- even if you give zero you-know-whats -- the Jets can still make you cry.
They just did it again on Sunday. A one-point loss to the Bengals accomplished via a missed extra point, a late interception and a surrendered field goal with seconds to play -- so Jets.
The New Jersey-based team with the New York name once again flexed its masochistic muscle, reminding fans that the Jets can make even a Week 1 loss hurt like hell.
For Benincasa, choosing to suffer that inevitable Jets heartbreak over and over is so endearing it elicits tears. Those of us with closets full of numbered clothes and vacations planned around away games understand how mood-altering a team's effort can be, and our friends and family feel it, too. It can be difficult to get inside someone else's appreciation for a great movie, song or piece of art, but somehow it seems we can feel their anguish or joy after an important game.
Sports are a powerful mess of civic pride, childhood memories, nostalgia and hero worship. For some families, game day means a rare safe space to share. Political differences are put aside, arguments are shelved and the TV remote briefly loses its status as a catalyst for a wrestling match.
Families bond over matching jerseys, the creation of a new tailgate snack or the backstory of a popular player. Parents teach their kids which team to root for, how to throw a spiral, what a rub route looks like and how to balance a helmet full of a nachos and a giant soda while walking up a steep flight of 400-level stairs.
A bond is formed, even for folks who share sports from the periphery, like Benincasa. For her, football means getting to see her father's heart through his love for the Jets.
