Picking Splinters

Last Sunday night while watching the Oscars I was struck with a thought, about sports, of all things. Amid the gads of mind numbing softball questions lobbed at the celebrities by Star Jones and her ilk, one answer stood out. When asked what he would do if his child told him he wanted to be an actor, Johnny Depp said something along the lines of “my child is pretty smart and there are a lot more important things to do than become an actor.”

It was such an unpretentious answer, essentially acknowledging how small a role actors play in the grand scheme of the world. For the most part I agree with him. Acting is one of those occupations that falls pretty far down on the list of “Important Post-Apocalyptic Jobs.” But are movies useless in that grand scheme? And if movies aren’t providing anything, what does that say about sports?

If these dramatic works of art don’t count for much, what does that say about watching grown men run around playing games meant for children?

Personally I believe that both movies and sports have lots to offer us. But if pushed, I would say that sports offer even more. Getting back to our “Important Post-Apocalyptic Jobs” list, neither would likely make the top ten. But sports offer many things that movies do not.

Movies are art, and movies can teach us lessons about ourselves and the world around us, but in the end, they are just stories. It’s true that making them can develop our imaginations and help foster our creativity, but sports can open our minds just as much, and they have a practical element to them as well.

Movies are tied to a script. No matter how good that script is, they are created, man-made. But in sports, anything can happen at any time. Just as easily and as fast as an instinctive action or a mental lapse, a work of genius can be created.

Blink and you might miss Wayne Gretzky going through his legs and then roofing a puck for a goal, or Pele slamming a bicycle kick into the back twine of the net. Or maybe you’ll miss a scrawny 125-lb. kid from down the block take a fastball and hit it 400 feet to center field.

At any level, sports can make the unimaginable a reality. Who could ever believe that a college football game between California and Stanford would be decided by five laterals and a final dash through a throng of marching band members who had taken the field prematurely? If you had written that in a script pre-1982 and passed it to one of the Weinstein brothers under the men’s room stall door, I guarantee you I know where it would have ended up.

Yes, there have been movies about underdogs, but they hardly seem real. And is the “upset” even surprising any more? The fact that the sports film cliché is for the underdog to win, and is thus likely, should answer that question.

But for a group of college kids to defeat a Soviet team of professional hockey players that had absolutely annihilated NHL teams? Al Michaels got it right — that was nothing short of miraculous. And for my money, I sincerely doubt even Orson Welles could have scripted a better call.

Movies are inspiring, yes, but only to a point. When we see Maggie Fitzgerald devote herself to her dream of boxing in “Million Dollar Baby” we believe in the power of persistence. When we see Luke Skywalker use the Force to blow up the Death Star, we’re inspired that we can do anything. But those events aren’t real. Someone created them with a pen and paper.

With sports, people can actually create the miraculous with their flesh and blood. In the movies, they can write about Neo floating in the air for five seconds while throwing a round-house kick in “The Matrix.” In sports, Vince Carter can completely clear a seven-foot tall

Frenchman while dunking a basketball. In the movies, you can write about Aragorn putting aside the curse of his past and leading the people of Middle Earth to victory in “The Return of the King.” But in sports, the Red Sox can shake of the Curse and rally from three games down to the Yankees and go on to win the World Series. Not only are these events amazing, but they are real, they are history, they happened. Neo and Aragorn … not so much.

I could spend all day trying to coax a laser sword into my hand using only my mind. It ain’t going to happen. And someone will probably punch me for being a nerd.

Because sports are real, they are more applicable to life. Yes, both movies and sports teach us lessons, but only in sports can we see the real results, no need for special effects.

Isn’t reality more inspiring, knowing that something can be achieved, setting your mind to it and then earning it? And the “it” can be anything, not just hitting a three-pointer at the buzzer, or hitting a home run. It can be a college degree or a doctorate. It can be founding a charity or, say, leading the rebirth of society after the Apocalypse. The possibilities are as limitless as your imagination. We have the movies to thank for that.

As for the power of inspiration, for that I thank sports.

Mike Hume may be emailed at mhume@fcnp.com