In honor of Butler's Final Four win over Michigan State, continuing their amazing run in the 2010 NCAA tournament, I will post a sports-related theorem.
Theorem 3: In any game, there is always a correct team to root for. This team can be determined through logic.
I recently was informed that there were people actually rooting for Michigan State in their game against Butler. This was absolutely shocking to me because there is no conceivable way for a rational being to root against Butler.
According to ESPN.com, 99.99% of people had Kansas winning the national championship, so you can't claim you are rooting for Michigan State because of a pool. Also, Michigan State is a public school, thereby making them suck in comparison to Butler. Butler has never been in this position in a tournament, whereas Michigan State has reached the Final Four in 6 of the last 12 years.
Butler is 1/10th the size of Michigan State and every one of Butler's players would be acceptable for your daughter to date. Ronald Nored is the sophomore class president, Jukes has traveled to Africa for community service or something sweet like that. Butler has engineers on the team, and everyone will graduate in four years. Hayward looks like the guy from Luck of the Irish and Coach Brad Stevens is possibly the nicest guy in the world.
Clearly, there is no conceivable way for one to root for Michigan State over Butler. But is this the case for every game? Can a team always be preferred over the other? Obviously.
If a school denies you admission, they have officially screwed you over and you must not root for that team in any sport. If a sibling or parent has or currently does attend a school, you must root for that school. If a team's main player has bad morals, you must not root for that team. These basic rules are well-known and will dictate which team is the correct team to root for.
There is nothing more frustrating than watching a person who unknowingly is rooting for the wrong team. For the sake of sports, you must let them know they are rooting for the wrong team and tell them the reasons why they should root for the other. For example, Tom was rooting for Michigan State but he clearly didn't think through things before deciding his allegiances. Unfortunately, I didn't have the time to tell him why he was wrong, but I think now he knows.
Few logic rules are universal, as oftentimes logic works against other logic. However, certain things are universal. That is, if you live in the U.S. of A., you root for any team with U.S. of A. on their jerseys. Otherwise, you are not an American and honestly should not be treated with the same amount of respect. Rooting against your country is unconstitutional.
Go Bulldogs.
question: what if some of your explanations contradict one another? is there a hierarchy to determine which explanations overrule others?
ReplyDeleteAbsolutely. But this gets very complicated...
ReplyDeleteAn obvious hierarchy is your school, a siblings school, a parent's alma mater, grandparent's alma mater, etc. in that order.
Other hierarchies are based off your own value system. If you value morality in the sports world, you would root against a team with a player with bad morals even though their opponent may have denied you admission. The fact is, however, that you can use logic to determine which team is the correct team for you to root for, it's just the equation is different for everyone.
And even in a game between two schools you've never heard of, you can do some research, i.e. ask some of your friend if they know people that got denied from that school, or if their academics suck, etc.