This won't mean much to you if you're not from or live in Cleveland and or don't care about sports.
They say Cleveland is a football town; I can't dispute that. I'm not a Browns fan particularly (though I'd like to see them do well), but it seems nearly everyone else is in Cleveland. Not only are there few supporters of other teams, it's the Browns that get supremacy as the top-dog team among the four pro-teams(though no one actually counts the Lake Erie Monsters) in the city. If you listen to sports talk radio, even right now, the Browns get next to all of the headlines.
A few years back, at least this time of year, that wasn't the case. When LeBron was in town and the Cavs were title contenders, they were the toast of the town. That all changed, obviously, and the Browns came back on top despite their consistent inability to even be competitive.
The NFL is the most popular sport's league in the country right now. Football is the most popular sport. Last Friday, I was watching the Cavs hang with a solid Minnesota team, while in the workout room at our apartment. It went to the commercial so I was reading. During that commercial break, three other guys came in and changed it to the Orange Bowl; a completely meaningless game between a team from West Virginia and a team from South Carolina I don't know who the guys were and I had about 2 minutes left, so I didn't make a big deal about it, but to me, it was a telling experience: there are people who live in Cleveland's inner-city who prefer poorly played amateur football to a riveting game of professional basketball. Two years ago, that wouldn't have ever been the case. Had it been a Brown's regular season game, even this year when they were abysmal, that wouldn't have happened.
I could bemoan the evident lack of respect and pride in the Cavs I see around the city. I could excoriate these three people as representative for the whole city when I shouldn't. I don't know them. One was wearing a camo-style Indians hat, but other than that, I know next to nothing about them.
Whether or not Cleveland as a metro-area loves the Cavs as much as I do or as much as I believe we all ought is immaterial. I've watched at least some of every Cavs game so far this year though, and something magical is happening when they take the court to represent Cleveland. More than anything, I'm afraid the majority of the city is going to miss it.
Cleveland, as a city, has a certain character about it. There's something beneath the surface of the people here. It's certainly a blue collar town in its way, but it's not Detroit in that sense and it's not Toledo or Pittsburgh either. There's something else, something burning and delightful, but hard and tempered on the surface. There's a grit and a grime about the city and the people who live here. That sounds dirty and, in a way, it is a bit, but it's also a sort of resolve and drive that says, in the face of any amount of adversity, that we aren't going anywhere and while we probably won't live to see Cleveland become the metropolis it was once on the track toward, we aren't going to give up the hope that we can do something to propel this city forward. When I watch this year's edition of the Cavs, I see that play out on the court every night.
No matter the deficit, if these Cavaliers do anything, it's hustle. They don't give up. Last night, in the face of a 15 point deficit that turned into a 20 point loss, even more than halfway through the 4th quarter, players were running down loose balls like their entire point of being was winning the game. The style of defense, the tenacity and the hardness with which they play throbs with the spirit of Cleveland's heart. It is still true that each player is either young, lack talent, or both, but as a unit, they come together and operate like a free-wheeling machine hellbent on accomplishing nothing if not putting forth more effort than would seem humanly possible. Losses are going to happen. I'm hopeful for the playoffs, but I'm more doubtful when I'm honest. That's the way the game breaks. But, at least for 8 games, I've never seen a basketball team play that hard, for that long, relentlessly. When I think about their relationship to Cleveland, I can't help but be proud; they/we might not win every game and probably won't win a championship anytime soon, but at least I know they're trying. That is Cleveland as currently situated. The Browns might be what all of Cleveland loves best, but the Cavaliers are the epitome of Cleveland. As of now, it doesn't seem that most of Cleveland really knows or cares. I just hope the snowball rolls up and we all take notice while we still can.
Perhaps the most ironic thing about it all is the way LeBron's Cavs never quite characterized Cleveland. LeBron is hated for two things here that are really one: quitting in the playoffs and betraying the city. More than anything else, he is a quitter- not just for leaving and giving up on his goal to bring Cleveland a championship, but, more importantly and not muddled by his personal rights, he quit on the team during the Boston series his two years ago. Cleveland doesn't quit. Feeling as if he was one of our own then seeing him do the things he did drew such a vehement negative response because people who had thought they saw themselves in LeBron ended up seeing that he was never even close to one of us. He just represented us, and, when it mattered most, he did so poorly. LeBron's Cavs were always characterized by having at least one player better than anyone else on the other team. That's not Cleveland. We have very little to offer that is, on its own, better than any other singular thing in any other city in the world. But altogether, when you take the food, the lack of traffic, the symphony, the spirit, etc...it all adds up to something beautiful. LeBron's leaving cost Cleveland a legitimate title shot for years, but if these Cavs, at any point, do win a championship, it will be as a team far more representative of Cleveland as a place, as a collective. That will be many times more glorious.
-Zack
"I'm sorry but I just can't die for you but I can make 'em put their hands in the sky for you"
-Jay-Z
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