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I welcomed the discovery of Psychoanalytic Perspectives on Intense Involvement in Sports, as I had the issue of Contemporary Psychoanalysis (46/4, 2010) where eight of its twelve papers first appeared. This book appeals to me as a sports fan, though I imagine it can also provide a helpful entry into the mind of a sports fan for those not afflicted with a love of sports.
In keeping with the tone of the book, whose contributors share their experiences as sports fans and participants, I will start with a few scenes from my own love of sports. I spent hours in the driveway of my family home shooting baskets, imagining that I was Walt Frazier, the great shooting guard from my favorite team at that time, the New York Knicks. The clock would be winding down, and in the final seconds I would put up a potential winning shot; if I missed I would have been fouled, and I'd go to the foul line to take my foul shots. Whatever the outcome, I could rewind and play the situation again and again. Reflecting with pleasure on a similar experience in his past, Steven Cooper concludes, “It makes me long for the simplicity of the useless play of sport” (p. 48).
During my adolescence, my room was graced with a poster of John Carlos and Tommie Smith standing on the Olympic medal stand with gloved fists raised in a salute, as a statement of protest and Black pride. Their combination of athletic excellence and righteous anger captured my imagination. Finally, I reflected on my continuing love of collecting
sports memorabilia. Hanging in my “baseball room” at home is my tenth birthday present from my parents, autographs of the 1964 Washington Senators, which my father gathered at a D.C. lunch he had attended. Hanging in the room along with it are autographs, pictures, bats, balls, and cards, which I returned to collecting in middle age. What is this revival of childhood excitement, by which I continue to be moved? While the book has some answers, more than that, it evoked rich associations f