06/20/2025
(As we anxiously wait for Game 7 of the NBA Finals, I wanted to preserve this moment to acknowledge all that's good about sports. Go Pacers!)
Sports Talk
I met a local celebrity the other day. He’s known as JMV and he is the voice of the Indiana sports fan. He has hosted The Ride with JMV, the “drive time” late afternoon slot on the preeminent sports talk radio station in Indianapolis for over 20 years.
These are heady times for Indiana sports fans. Our beloved Indiana Pacers are in the middle of The NBA Finals, the last step of the months long tournament the National Basketball Association stages to crown its yearly champion. They’ve been a good team in recent years, but few experts thought they would be one of the last two teams vying for a championship.
Their opponent is the Oklahoma City Thunder. This year’s finals are unusual in that both teams are from smaller markets and traditional powers from bigger cities like the Boston Celtics, Los Angeles Lakers, Golden State Warriors, or New York Knicks are nowhere to be seen this time.
Why are sports so important to us?
Why do we rearrange our schedules, yell at our TVs, and wear the same lucky jersey even when logic tells us it’s ridiculous? What is it about watching athletes, many of them millionaires and as far removed from our lives as astronauts or rock stars, that can make us feel like we’re a part of something bigger?
When you consider these athletes are often just mercenaries going from team to highest bidding team, the notion becomes even more absurd. We’re rooting for a uniform, not a person. As Jerry Seinfeld once said, we’re cheering for clothes.
It’s easy to dismiss it all as “just a game,” and of course, on one level, it is. Grown people throwing and kicking balls or swinging bats to score points. But on another level, it’s deeply human. It’s unscripted theater. It’s community.
There’s something primal about rooting for a team that represents your city, especially when it’s a city that doesn’t get as much notoriety as New York or Los Angeles. When teams from smaller cities rise to the national stage, it feels like we rise with them. Our voices, our values, and our identity finally get their moment.
The other aspect of sports that is undeniable is connection with other people. Love for a team is passed down from generation to generation, often with season tickets attached. A grandfather tells stories of Reggie Miller’s battles with the Knicks. Perfect strangers with little else in common bond over the highs and lows of their favorite team. The small business owner puts a Pacers flag in the storefront window.
When JMV talks about these moments on the radio, he’s not just delivering scores and stats. He’s delivering shared emotion. He’s the connective tissue between the game and the people who care about it.
We also care because it’s a distraction from the real world. When global events feel out of control and the news cycles are overwhelming, sports offer an escape and some measure of clarity. You know who’s winning and losing. There’s a scoreboard and rules to be followed. And in the middle of all that, there’s hope.
Hope that the underdog might pull it off because we love the underdog.
There’s something about seeing a team with less history, less budget, and less star power come together and beat the odds. It reminds us that greatness isn’t always about pedigree. It’s about chemistry, timing, grit, belief, and sometimes luck. Things we can relate to in our own lives whether we’re running a business, raising a family, or chasing a dream that no one else quite understands.
When two smaller city teams like the Thunder and the Pacers compete, we don’t just see a basketball game. We see a metaphor. We see possibility. We see the quiet confidence of people who were never supposed to make it this far… but did.
Because every once in a while, the buzzer-beater falls, the long shot wins, and the once overlooked make history. And in that moment, we all win.
Indiana Pacers NBA NBA on ESPN
