Given to Fly

Prepare for takeoff. Smooth swing. Compression. Liftoff. Ascent. Apex. Descent. Soft landing. Target hit. Mission accomplished.

The enjoyment of golf may come from its social aspect - five hours spent in an adult playground with friends - but the addiction of golf stems from this magical sequence. Whether it’s a perfect 275-yard drive splitting the fairway or an approach iron that lands seamlessly 10 feet from the pin, the inherent joy from those shots isn’t merely manifested through the end result— it’s through shot’s motion of flight. There’s a distinct satisfaction not just in hitting the ball on the club’s sweet spot, but in watching the ball take off, becoming a tiny projectile bound for a distant target. The height, the trajectory, and the majesty of the ball’s arc mesmerize us, capturing our imaginations long before it lands.

So long as flight is considered a superpower, the act of a ball majestically soaring through the air is one reason for the allure of sport. 

Flight has long been humanity's ultimate superpower. Save for perhaps invisibility, no superpower is as desired quite like flight. From the myth of Icarus to the comic book lore of Superman, humans have projected their desires for freedom, transcendence, and the defiance of physics onto the idea of flight. But our fascination with flight goes beyond practicality. The modern convenience of air travel, for example, doesn’t inspire the same awe. Sitting in a pressurized cabin, restricted to a static seat, is a far cry from the autonomy that flight caused by a human body represents.

So if we can’t suddenly develop wings or aerodynamic apparati to our flesh, how else can we best display individual dreams of flying.

How about a topic in which we already sublimate and transfer a lot of our aspirations?

Sports.

The initial example of golf represented one sport in which transferred energy and force makes a ball fly. Golf is easy to highlight, because that’s a sport where people can still play into old age without relying on immersion solely through being a spectator. Yet for the most popular sports in the largest leagues, we see the dreamwork of living vicariously through athletes’ triumphs in flight.

In baseball, a home run requires applause not just as appreciation for a team scoring, but as acknowledgment for an awe-inspiring act of transcendence. The ball leaves the bat with a crack and soars into the sky, disappearing from view as it travels to some distant, unreachable place. Clips of iconic home runs— like Josh Hamilton’s upper deck derby shots or Kyle Schwarber’s towering shot in the 2015 NLCS—live on in perpetuity, not just for their achievement’s influence on the game’s result, but for the beauty and majesty of a ball launched into orbit. Even the canonical moment of the 2005 NLCS is the moonshot by Abert Pujols, despite the Cardinals losing the series. 

In football, this ability to initiate flight takes shape in deep passes and long-range kicks. Fans are mesmerized by a quarterback’s perfectly arcing spiral cutting through the air or a field goal attempt traveling end-over-end, defying distance while remaining on course. We’re not mesmerized by wayward throws or wide field goals, just as we’re not impressed with golf tee shots hit miles out of bounds, because flight’s purpose still lies in its precision and safe arrival at its target destination. A Hail Mary pass, for instance, isn’t just remarkable because it travels 60 yards in a desperate moment. The play captivates us because of its potential to reach its destination in the most trying of times, and provides an added excitement when its completion mimics a soft landing onto a chaos filled runway. 

Perhaps there’s no more appropriate sport for the metaphor for flight than basketball. 

We’re not just witnessing more deep three pointers in the NBA than ever before, but basketball is also a sport where players take flight. A dunk, for instance, is more than just an efficient bucket; it’s a gesture of defying gravity, to transform into something unbound and almost divine. The leap over the rim, and perhaps over one or two rooted defenders, with arm motions that mimic a human extending their wings, conjures an ascension above the mundane before returning to earth.

I might be cherry picking here, but I vividly recall Space Jam’s soundtrack featuring songs like “I Believe I Can Fly” and “Fly Like an Eagle” - a nod to the sport that allows us to elevate, figuratively and literally.  

I can wax poetic about the role of flight in sports - albeit some of my metaphors stretch like Michael Jordan in Space Jam - but my connection between flight and sports was joined by a eureka moment in which sports that include more flight than others may be more popular to Americans than others.

In contrast to the sports that comprise America’s Big Three sports leagues and the ever-ascending post-pandemic popularity of golf, less acclaimed sports like hockey and soccer focus on keeping their objects and players grounded. While these sports are immensely popular around the world and growing in influence (moreso Major League Soccer than the National Hockey League), they lack the spectacle of flight that is required to take off in the US.

Scoring in hockey and soccer is often low, and so is the trajectory of their objects (God, I wish there was an all-encompassing word for pucks and balls - for now, let’s call them widgets). While the widgets are intended to stay low, gliding along the field of play, leaving the ground is usually a strategic move, but rarely intended for performance. Majority of times when the widget is lifted, it’s unintentional (errant slapshot in stands) or viewed as a reset (like a goalie punting a ball). Very rarely is the act of the widget flying celebratory.  

There are several theories for America’s relative disinterest in soccer and hockey. Some stem with the athletes - either being international (unrelatable) or looking normal in physique and stature (too relatable). The ubiquitous excuse is the lack of scoring, which Americans confuse with lack of action. Since broadcast media promotes sports popularity, soccer’s lack of commercials doesn’t fit into America’s capitalist agenda.

Throughout these varied valid reasons, I’m throwing mine in the ring. Watching human’s propel widgets into orbit, on line and into the distance, pushing the boundaries of human ability, is a subconscious feature for the glamour of some sports over others.

For many Americans, hockey and soccer’s goals don’t evoke the same romanticism as compared to baseball’s home runs or basketball’s dunks. Their beauty lies in tight spaces and intricate plays, not in the majesty of height. The journey of the widget is about finding order by navigating chaos, not transcending order by escaping it.

So perhaps the escapist persona we get from being a sports fan - from removing our identity as a sane civilian into a rabid zealot - craves the sport where the players and action are no longer grounded by restrictions of human nature.

The strong correlation between sports who reward “flight” and popularity in America cannot be disputed. Yet flight being the cause of this popularity is just a theory, my theory. While my curiosity may strike up continued anthropological research, I maintain belief that American fandom, perhaps more so than compared to other countries, is rooted in the freedom, adventure, and incentive to escape the humdrum of everyday existence.