The Bekavac Files: A Three Part Manifesto on Sports and Society (Part Three)

(Editors Note: Part Three in the Bekavac Series. Part Two here)

Part III – TILT!

“When Namath walked onto the field for your team, it just ‘tilted’ in your
favor.” – Al Davis

In a playoff at Torrey Pines near San Diego in the 2008 U.S. Open, Tiger Woods needed to sink a long birdie putt to force a playoff between he and Greensburg’s own Rocco Mediate. He made it, and went on to win the playoff.

But, didn’t you just kind of feel it was going in?

Or, how sick does it make you if your team is playing the Patriots, and your team is up by two – kicking off –with 1:51 to play?

Or, if Bryon Russell was 7’6’’ with windmill arms and the quickest hops known to man, would he be able to block that shot?

Greatness makes these feelings and questions happen in a fan. It is knowing, but not knowing. It is premonition with no vision. It is a tilting of the field. It’s the intangible.

To be truly “great,” you must make the improbable probable. This is more than Bob Costas saying this at a montage during the Olympics. You have to take the core of sports, this chance that anything can happen, and make it happen only one way. It’s clutch, it’s the zone, it’s ice water in the veins. It’s talent and luck.

It’s greatness.

Greatness is the imposition of will over the random chaos of possible outcomes of a sporting event. Moreover, it is that imposition over many sporting events. Jordan, Woods, Federer, Brady, Montana, Bird, Magic, Mays, and Ruth all had it. This is not to say that others who never had that one moment of “he’s going to do this” weren’t great. Hank Aaron was great because he did everything at a high level for a very long time. And, it isn’t saying that those who had that one moment – Maz or Lorenzo Charles – were. I’m just saying that greatness is this one thing, in sports. That athletes that make a fan feel that they are sure that the outcome will happen in a certain way are great.

Or, like Delton Hall, you know that he will get burnt for a 40 yard bomb by Al Toon and then get flagged for 15 yards for a late hit, personal foul facemask out of bounds. First and goal at the 6.

Go Steelers.