The New York Knicks and the longing for connection

There’s nothing like the feeling of celebrating with perfect strangers, especially when your underdog team is on an unlikely championship run. We’ve all seen the images and videos of watch parties in New York City; outside of Madison Square Garden, in Bryant Park, in Central Park, projected on the sides of buildings all over the 5 boroughs, and even on airplanes.

When the roar went through crowd after crowd all over the City, when OG Anunoby tipped in that last shot in Game 4, I’m surprised it didn’t measure on the Richter scale. The eruption of screaming was so loud, it could be heard 2 miles away, across the Hudson River in New Jersey. 

As a psychotherapist who has worked with groups of people for over 3 decades, I know this: People want to feel a part of; they want to feel connected; they want to belong. And that is something that sports can do more so beautifully. 

At a time people are so isolated, and lonely, and turning to chatbots to be their “friends,” it’s been so healing to see people coming together. In a country where we’re so deeply polarized, and feeling farther apart than ever in our lifetimes (and I lived through the Vietnam War), that longing to connect is being sated.

As I smiled and cried at the sheer joy of the celebrations in NY, it brought me back to being at Shea Stadium for Game 7 in 1986, when the NY Mets won the World Series. There’s no other sound that compares to 57,000 fans screaming in celebration, and no other feeling like not having enough room in my stadium row to adequately express the level of joy I was experiencing.

It’s a special kind of vitality that only comes from being together at a championship game – that collective energy is almost indescribable. Everyone has the sense of being on the same team – because we are. 

It’s the 12th Man concept – the idea that the fans are the extra player on the team that positively impacts those on the court, and contributes to the win. In the 4th quarter of game 4, with the sound of their boos, the crowd willed Wemby to miss that pair of free throws, and willed the ball through the net on every 3-point attempt by the Knicks. 

“What we can’t do alone, we can do together!”

The energy is contagious, and the players picked up on it. In Positive Psychology, we call it positive contagion, and we are seeing an extraordinary example of it in NY right now. And as the chances of the Knicks winning it all has increased, so has the positivity. (A very special shout out to the team of people who smudged the Garden after Game 3, and shifted the juju.)

Friends of mine who live in NYC have told me that people are smiling at one another, and greeting each other on the street. The kindness and neighborly energy is palpable. Everyone is in a good mood! Believe me when I tell you – as a born and raised New Yorker who lived in the City for over 21 years, that is NOT normal. The positive contagion has spread to even the most curmudgeonly people in the City.

It’s one of the few times since I moved to California almost 22 years ago, that I wish I still lived in NY. And even though I’m on the other side of the country, I’m riding the wave of the Orange and Blue.

Go New York, Go New York, Go!!!

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About Jean:

Jean Campbell, LCSW, SEP, TTP, TEP has been bringing together groups of people to heal for over 31 years. She blends her extensive experience in psychodrama, sociometry, group psychotherapy, somatic healing and trauma resolution to offer training for helping professionals, personalized intensives, clinical consultation, and leadership workshops. You can find her at theactioninstitute.com, on Instagram at @actioninstitute, and on Facebook at @actioninstituteofcalifornia.