A good ten years ago my college buddy invited me to Burning Man. Sure, I had heard of it before. It was a wild party in the desert. Why not, let’s go. My friend Pete Apicella flew out from New York with elaborate costume entail. The very fisrt thing he did was tape a crude cardboard sign to the back of my car. It read:
“No Spectators, Only Participants”
He was obsessed with this phrase and waxed poetic about it for hours on the car ride over the Sierras towards Nevada. Other cars with bikes and tons of gear would honk and give us high fives. What was all this enthusiasm about? Pretty much impossible to really get it until you are there.
Arriving at Burning Man was a religious experience. 10,000 people at that time camped in a giant half arc stretching for almost a mile. What immediately stood out was that there were no headliners to this concert. No main act. Nothing even for sale anywhere except one small Burning Man sponsored beer, coffee, and ice stand. The people were the party. The people were the happening. Every camp had a DJ. Every camp had dancers, wild costumes, food to share.
How does this all relate to soccer? A few years later I had the epiphany that playing REAL soccer would be way more fun than watching sports on TV. And sure enough the drama of the competition of your own team makes even the SuperBowl seem non-important. And of course the health benefits of excercise are obvious.