Immersion

International swimmers gathered in Rome last week for the Sette Colli (Seven Hills) meet. Several visited the Vatican, where Pope Leo spoke about sports as an avenue for spiritual growth. He specifically blessed swimming:

"Swimming is practiced while immersed in an element, water, which surrounds the person. This symbolically recalls an aspect that has shaped us from our mother's womb: to live means learning to move in harmony with others and with the environment around us." — Pope Leo

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Though I'm no longer a practicing Catholic, reading the Pope's blessing on my favorite pastime thrilled me—especially his correlation between sport and harmony with others and the environment. When I immerse myself in water, particularly during summer heat, I find peace. I hear only the slosh of water in my ears, watch clouds through nose bubbles on my back, wash away anxieties with each bilateral stroke. My joy in the sport renews itself with every lap.

Pope Leo also noted that sport promotes individual values: commitment, solidarity, honesty—the watch never lies. I witness my swimmers demonstrate these qualities on the deck, and appreciate them in myself, in the young people I coach, and in my own children. The Pope said it best: "the age of competition passes, but those values remain."

I saw those same values again last week, watching World Cup soccer fans fill stadiums across North America. Different countries, languages, colors, passions—all immersed in the same experience. Norwegian fans thundering their rows, Argentine supporters dancing in the stands, French crowds erupting together. The solidarity was palpable. Spectators chose which matches to watch based not just on the game itself but on the electricity of the crowd, the singing and emotion that filled the stands.

Both immersion in water and immersion in community seem to offer the same thing: harmony with others, commitment to something beyond ourselves, the feeling of being held by something larger. Maybe that's what we're starved for—these moments when individual joy becomes collective, when the watch stops mattering and only presence counts.

Collective Joy

 "It was an overwhelming sense of joy and solidarity and diversity and community and a good amount of crying and a lot of contact high." - Jon Stewart on NYC celebration after Knicks win

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Living his best sports-fan life in New York City, our older son spent Saturday night in a Financial District bar watching the Knicks win the NBA title for the first time in 53 years, then Tuesday afternoon cheering France to a 3-1 World Cup victory. From shouts of "Knicks in Five!" to "Allez le bleu," he's ping-ponged from one joyous, dance-filled mosh pit to another. The rest of us live vicariously through his videos and photos. One clip lurches from one exuberant group of patrons to another—all jumping, cheering, sloshing their expensive alcohol right out of their cups.

Watching the outdoor Knicks watch parties across the five boroughs filled my heart and made me cry. How often do we witness collective joy that transcends socioeconomic, racial, and gender lines? New York City survived 9-11, was hardest-hit by the pandemic, seems ground zero for big city struggles. To see its people embrace a common victory lifted something in me. The last Knicks championship happened the day after my younger brother was born. I joked with Mom yesterday that Dad was home supposedly watching me while she was in labor, but really watching the Knicks game on TV.

I crashed briefly after realizing basketball was finished, only to realize a wave of near-manic religiosity from World Cup fans had crashed on our shores. Scottish supporters took over Boston Common with bagpipers marching to Fenway. French crowds thronged Central Park. Norwegians "rowed" their way up escalators. Argentine fans partied in Kansas City. Surreal. Joyful. A life-long sports fan, I'm thrilled that so many came to our country to share their passion with us.

I know sports won't fix inflation or water security or the weight of real struggle. But collective joy—the kind that spills across neighborhoods and unites strangers from different countries and backgrounds—that matters too. It's practice. It's proof we're capable of standing together and wanting something.