Drawing the Game: NCAA Final Four Finals 2008

These are seven drawings tracing the game play during the NCAA Final Four finals, wherein The mighty JayHawks of Kansas University ousted the undefeated Memphis Tigers in an overtime end-of-the-bracket thriller. Sports are the modern-day civilized version of the old-timey game of war, right? A contest between the most skilled representatives of rival states, vying for ownership over the outcome of the game, which bears much significance among those participating in the 'thing'? Which is perhaps why we see so many of our fellow citizens concentrate much of their time and feelings, their joy and pain, criticism and applause and the space on their shirts and hats and jackets on the team they support? The human condition forces an aggressive set unto average Jim and Mr. Bill Regular, but progress has blessed their constitution with the desire to achieve victory without bloodshed. There is honor in the game, much as there used to be honor in battle. Todays wars, however, are an abstract lot - I heard we are currently experiencing the 4th generation of warfare; everyone is suspect, and the field of battle is global. Strategy is complex and theoretical at best. There is no theatre; the general isn't reacting to the play-by play; it's in the hands of bureaucrats, and it plays out on their timeline, which doesn't relate to average Jim and Mr. Bill Regular, because they like to see a charge, to feel momentum building on one side or another, to draw the line and understand the statistics and obtain closure within the hour. I think, though I wasn't alive back then (but I've seen the movies and read the books), that war used to be more like that sort of game - you picked your side, you put on your jersey, got your pep-talk, took to the field and set your line according to coach's strategy, then you did your best to execute, and maybe you got took, or maybe you did the taking, and you won or lost based on geographic gains and casualties. And the news made sense. Perhaps professional sports have become so popular because war isn't something we can get behind - first since, apart from the orthodoxy
(aka the fellowship of degenerates), we all agree that killing is bad, and second because democracy lets us speak out, to an increasingly greater critical degree than ever before probably, against our country's military efforts, or your country's efforts. Sports are a game, and there are rules, and there ain't no democracy, and so you really can be with us or against us (us being any of the teams you choose to support, which I would hope are the teams that you have some sort of a cultural or geographic tie to - anyone who picks a team at random is, in my mind, a loser. I would say with conviction that you need a pretty good reason not to support your home team. Logos aren't the best reason to pick your favorite team. I guess that is the democratic part, picking any team you please, but I don't like it, and I digress). With this in mind, this opinion that sports are significant because they are the new violence, and as such indicate our progress as a kindlier people, I decided that mapping the big game was a good way to take relational aesthetics to a new place - to humanize a statistic, and to give reason to making squiggles.
I have not fully developed this whole idea.








I was rooting for KU, btw, because I've been to Lawrence Kansas and have fond memories of the special night I spent there with three close friends en route to our second year of college in Vancouver, and I've a past history with KU alumni.