With the Philadelphia Eagles set to compete for the ultimate prize at Super Bowl LIX, religious studies professor Megan Robb has noticed a ‘buzz of collective effervescence’ in her Religion and Sports class, a space where students discuss ritual and ceremony, and debate where sports and religion intersect.
The discussions that take place when Philadelphia Eagles chaplain, Ted Winsley, visits Megan Robb’s Religion and Sports class are always memorable.
“The students ask him questions like how he addresses the needs of non-Christian players and how he sees the relationship between religion and sports, says Robb, associate professor of religious studies in Penn’s School of Arts & Sciences. “Once a student asked him what he does about the fact that some players see religion as a tool for sporting success instead of the other way around.”
Megan Robb is an associate professor of religious studies in the School of Arts & Sciences.
(Image: Greg Benson)
Winsley has been coming to this class since Robb started teaching it eight years ago. This semester, his planned visit is in early April, just a few weeks after the Eagles play the Kansas City Chiefs in Super Bowl LIX. “When the Eagles are doing well, there is a special energy to the class, a buzz of collective effervescence,” Robb says, referring to a concept philosopher Émile Durkheim developed to describe the meaning people elicit from “enthusiastic groups” full of “electric emotions.”
Sports can do that, Robb says, evoke that collective effervescence, unite unlikely groups or divide them, create space for ritual and ceremony for fans and players alike. Robb asks her students to grapple with these notions, using football, baseball, basketball, soccer, even cricket as case studies. It’s all in an effort to answer what Robb considers the most difficult question of them all in this context: Can a sport really be a religion?
“We’re having that moment in Philly again, where you feel out whether someone is an Eagles fan and instead of saying ‘Goodbye,’ you say, ‘Go birds!’” Robb says, adding that this type of collective emotion tends to build community; she’s noticed rituals similar to those from seven years ago, like fans wearing the same unwashed jersey the whole season or sprinkling “holy water” on grass during the playoffs.
Intellectually, reverence to a sports team that verges on devotion makes sense to a scholar like Robb. “When you look historically, we can see really profound connections between many kinds of sports activities and religious institutions,” she says. She cites as an example the first Olympics, which occurred as a way to venerate the gods and took place near the Temple of Zeus.
In class this semester, Robb is asking her 35 students to think critically about these complex dynamics, aided by materials and projects that explore similar themes. Robb says her goal by semester’s end is for each individual to formulate a personal response to whether sports fandom can indeed equate to a religious experience.
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