The Case of the Closet Lakers Fan

It’s June 17^th, 2010 and I sit alone in the living room, focused intently on the television.  Game 7 of the NBA playoffs.
  

I’m a Lakers fan, though not a rabid one.  I don’t watch every game, but am more of a playoffs kind of viewer.  

And I really prefer to enjoy their games in the presence of good company.

I took my kids to see the Lakers when they were young, and we had a grand time.  

We’ve gone downtown, braving the crowd of tens of thousands for the huge Lakers’ victory parade.
   

And I’ve been known to fly a Lakers flag on my car during the playoffs – especially if they are playing the Celtics.

The age old rivalry between the Lakers and Celtics can always get my heart pumping.  My Lakers/Celtics fanaticism goes back to the era of the 1980s.

That decade, Larry Bird of the Celtics and Magic Johnson of the Lakers led their teams to win a combined eight NBA titles in the decade, with the Lakers winning five and the Celtics winning three. 
  

The Lakers and Celtics have met previously in four Game 7s, with the Celtics prevailing every time.  So this time, the stakes are high.  

It’s a winner-take-all-style Game 7!

This is a big one.  One I’d much rather have been enjoying with friends and family. 
 

But I sit alone in the room, riveted by the action.  Well, alone except for my roommate’s young, somewhat stupid toy poodle, Bear.

(Bear belongs to my roommate, but he really thinks he’s my dog.)

He sits faithfully there beside me throughout the entire game, jumping  every time I startle him with my loud outbursts.

In the third quarter, when the Lakers finally start to overcome their 13-point deficit against the arch nemesis, my cheers begin to get louder.  But by now, Bear seems to have become accustomed to what must seem to him my bizarre behavior.

Now he sits by me, looking up at me quizzically now every time I cheer loudly.  Occasionally, I’ll stroke his head distractedly, but I mostly just tune him out.

With just six minutes remaining, Derek Fisher hits a fantastic three-point shot.  The crowd goes wild, and I jump to my feet and cheer.  Who doesn’t love “The Fish”?!

A minute and a half, and Pau Gasol makes a shot.  The game is 70 to 74 and it looks like this might be a Laker victory.  (Though a lot can happen in 90 seconds in the NBA!)
 

Tension mounts. 

A minute to go, Kobe passes the ball to Ron Artest who sinks another 3-pointer!
  
BAM!  

The game is still a very close 79 to 81…  I jump to my feet again and cheer loudly.

With eleven seconds remaining, the apparently calm Sasha Vujacic hits two clutch free throws, bringing the score to 79 – 92.
  

The only sign of his nervousness is the silent, barely perceptible licking of his lips.

With the second swoosh, it looks like we might just whoop those Celtics!

But then with only 5 seconds to go, the Celtics’ Rondo throws up a three-pointer! 

No!!! This could tie the game and take us into overtime!  It might actually open the door to a defeat!

But he misses, and the crowd goes wild.  

I jump to my feet and do a little victory dance, shouting and cheering.

The game is over, and the Lakers are officially the winners of the NBA’s 2010 championships!

Now it becomes clear to Bear that things have changed somehow.
  

I am no longer going to plunk down beside him on the couch, he jumps up and runs from the room.

I barely even notice his leaving.  

I figure maybe my shouting and jumping around finally scared him off, and I continue to celebrate.

But in just a few seconds, Bear runs back into the room with his small, plastic basketball toy in his mouth.  A toy he has never ever used.  One that just never struck his fancy.

But in this joyous occasion, he wants to celebrate too.  

I am stunned.  He’d always hated (or at least been completely indifferent to) that toy, and could never be convinced to fetch it or play with it in any manner whatsoever.

And yet, he had apparently been watching the game much more closely than I gave him credit for.  And amazingly, he actually drew the correlation between the men throwing their basketball around (and the cheering it received) and his little, neglected toy basketball!

He ran and grabbed his ball and joined in the celebration, throwing it into the air and dancing around with me.  It was the most incredible thing I’ve ever seen from this dog by far.

 
I cheered, “Go Lakers!” and grabbed his ball as he threw it into the air. He jumped up and then threw the ball into the air himself. I tossed the ball across the room and yelled again, “Go Lakers!”

For the next several minutes he and I played fetch with his little, long-forgotten basketball as I followed the post-game excitement on the tv.

So now, whenever I cheer “Go Lakers!” Bear runs about looking for his basketball! 

And the point of the story this time?  Well, of course, I can’t help but draw a correlation to real life, and how we never know who might be observing, unbeknownst to us.

So often, our actions are being watched by people we may never even know.  People we never thought noticed us.

And it’s almost scary how people may often be making observations and forming opinions - or even changing their life habits - based on our actions whether we realize it or not.

So it is this blogger's opinion that we should try always to bear witness to that which we believe; to teach with our actions, that which we would like others to know.