Awe

Seeking to unpack this mystery of movement, I first ask Steve about his early experiences of awe. He quickly recalls watching UCLA basketball as a kid. His dad—a professor of political science at UCLA—had three season tickets, hot items for Steve, his brother, and, on occasion, to their youthful consternation, their mom, who liked to attend but couldn’t really tell you who won or lost the game. Steve tells me about a UCLA game from 1973, which he recalls with the precision of a historian. It was UCLA, ranked number one, against Maryland, ranked number two. Coached by John Wooden, UCLA was in an eighty-eight-game win streak, considered the greatest winning streak in sports history (sports analytics awe!). That night UCLA won by one point.

Steve recalls the visceral awe he felt at the game. The pulsing sound of the brass band. The cheerleaders moving in unison leading throngs of fans in waves of cheers. The astonishing size and grace of the UCLA players. The students and fans singing the school song, chanting, clapping, and roaring in harmony with the game. And amid this moving in unison, collective feeling, and shared attention, Steve saw a golden wave of light that moved across the tubas, trumpets, and trombones of the UCLA band.

I ask Steve about his philosophy of movement, expecting to hear about some basketball strategy, new sports analytic, or philosophy of coaching. Instead, he remembers his grandparents Elsa and Stanley Kerr, who built an orphanage for child survivors of the Armenian genocide while living in the Middle East. As Steve travels the world for basketball, Armenians make their way through waves of fans to express their appreciation.

Telling this to you gives me the chills . . . Steve reflects.

He continues: It’s so humbling to think how over one hundred years ago my ancestors and those of the Armenians I meet intersected in ways that changed their lives.

Steve Kerr’s philosophy of movement, of how to coordinate five big, fast bodies into patterns of synchronized collaboration, is found in the forms of moral beauty that moved him from his past, and the idea that different individuals, with their varying cultures and unique tendencies, can be brought together to produce something good. And that games unite people in the appreciation of this moving in unison.

Sports and games, like religion, ritualize our everyday moving in unison, and unite community in the effervescence of playing, watching, cheering, and celebrating (or consoling), as well as reflecting on human capacities, courage, and character. Historical studies find that the Olympics began in 776 BCE in Olympia, Greece, when women and men regularly ran races to settle, playfully, who was fastest. The myth of the games’ origins holds that five brothers, gods of fertility, decided to have a running race in honor of the goddess Hera. These races brought communities together in the delights of playful competition and spectatorship, and over time combined with elements of funeral rituals, hymns, prayers, dance, and other physical contests to become the Olympics that inspire awe today.

Some one thousand years before the Olympics began, the Olmecs, Mayans, and Aztecs of Mesoamerica were playing the oldest ball game known—ullamaliztli—on courts throughout Mexico, Guatemala, Belize, and Nicaragua. On the day of the game, priests would consecrate the field with prayers, songs, chanting, and rituals. In the competition, teams of two or three players from neighboring villages tried to push a ball with their hips and elbows through rings on a narrow court surrounded by paintings of Nahua warriors, monkey gods, and Quetzalcoatl, the feathered serpent god. At the game’s conclusion, the villagers would gather for dance, music, song, laughter, and revelry. Cultural forms that ritualize moving in unison weave together many wonders of life.

Such movement matters. Flocks of flying birds, schools of fish, and herds of wildebeests fare better against predators when moving in harmony. This is true for humans as well. Cricket teammates whose laughter and joy spread to one another bat better in ensuing innings on the pitch. In one study, it was the shared feeling of success, above and beyond players’ skills, that predicted the likelihood of victory for teammates playing cricket, football, baseball, and a popular video game. And outside of sports, when musicians in string quartets sway their bodies more in unison, their performances are of higher quality.