Sport in its purest form

Over the last few weeks, I've mentioned a number of my favorite things in sports. My favorite sport to watch/follow, a few of my favorite teams, etc. Well, if you'll indulge me for a few moments, I'm going to take a few moments to brag on my absolute favorite athletes in any sport, at any level. Those would be the student-athletes from my alma mater, Messiah College. Trust me, I have a larger point that I will get to fairly quickly.

There was a lot going on in the world Falcon athletics this weekend, some of it which I watched in person. I was a rather die-hard supporter of several Messiah teams during my four years as a student, and so one of the things I enjoy most about about having stayed in the area after graduation is being able to make it to games on a fairly regular basis.

To recap:
The Messiah women's basketball team, which has become one of better programs in the NCAA Division III, opened their season by going 2-0 and winning the Messiah Invitational tip-off tournament in rather dominating fashion. I was in the stands for both of those games.

The men's basketball team, which has risen out of years of mediocrity (at best) and made the NCAA tournament each of the last two years, went 1-1 at the Gettysburg College tip-off tournament.

The women's soccer team won two games at York to advance to the Final Four of the NCAA Division III tournament for the 4th year in a row, and the 5th year in the last 6. The Lady Falcons were the 2005 national champions, and were runners up in 2002.

And finally, the men's soccer team, which is the premiere Division III program, won two games at Messiah to advance to the Final Four of the NCAA tournament for the 4th year in a row, and the 7th time in the last 8 years. The Falcons are the 3 time defending national champions, and they have won 5 of the last 7 championships overall. I was at Saturday's game, a dominating 6-0 victory over Rochester.

So, first of all, go Falcons! As a proud alumnus, it's a lot of fun for me to be able to see Messiah teams performing at such a high level. I also like being able to use the word "we" when talking about Messiah teams and their success. One of my silly pet peeves is when fans of professional teams or major college teams that they have no actual ties to refer to the teams as "we". The various Falcon teams are the only ones you will ever hear me discuss using the word "we", regardless of how passionate I get about my other favorite teams.

Secondly, due to the high level that several of the Messiah teams have reached over the years since I first set foot on the Messiah campus (which is now almost a decade ago, which is really hard for me to believe), I've gotten to witness a lot of very high level NCAA Division III competition in several sports. I must say, that as a fan of sports in general, there are few things I enjoy more than NCAA-level Division III competition, whether Messiah is playing or not.

You might wonder why that is. Clearly, the best D-III teams don't come anywhere close to replicating the skill/talent of professional teams, or even the major college teams we see on TV from week to week. However, lower-level NCAA competition is, in my opinion, one of the view venues left in the US where you can witness grown men and women engaging in what I would call "pure" sports.

Let me expand on what I mean by that. Messiah College student-athletes, like all Division III athletes, are not on athletic scholarship. There is no national TV audience to impress. There are (with the rarest of exceptions) no future pro career to audition for. If you reach the highest levels, as a few Messiah teams have in recent years, your team might merit a 60-90 spot on a little watched hour long special that CBS runs each season to cover all the D-II and D-III championships. Do something totally extraordinary, as Messiah did in 2005 when both the men's and women's soccer teams went undefeated and won their respective championships, and you might merit a fleeting mention on ESPN.

All of that is to say that, when you watch D-III competition, you're watching players who play the game because they love the game, without much else involved. They aren't playing to support their education, or to seek an eventual pro payday. They aren't cash cows for their schools - many D-III schools, Messiah included, still don't even charge for their regular season games. They go to class like everyone else, they go through the long practices, the bus trips, the off season workouts and all of that, striving to be the best, with nothing ultimately at stake but personal and team pride. D-III athletics is one of last places where you can witness true, unspoiled athletic drama. In short, it is one one of the last venues of true amateurism in American sports, and that is very appealing to me as one who has often been very frustrated with the culture of spoiled millionaire athletes and big money college athletics.

My desire is to be a sportswriter professionally, and I will likely take any opportunity that comes along to do that. However, these are the athletes whose stories I most want to tell, and I hope that wherever I end up, I will have the opportunity to do just that. You will also likely see a lot of that in this blog, and it will likely be pretty Messiah-centric, at least for the time being.