There are people who scoff at entertainment of all kinds, including sports, as a frivolous thing. And in some way it's true that who carries a leather ball across a painted line really doesn't matter. But the last time my sister and I shared a moment that her cancer didn't dominate was watching *our* Wisconsin Badgers play Kentucky in the final four in 2014 (the only time in our lives that we attended the same school was my senior year in Madison, her first year as a PhD candidate there). Her cancer was advanced and she was on oxygen, but for two hours or so, she, her kids, and I watched one hell of a basketball game--and none of us focused on cancer.
It hurt when the Badgers lost on a desperate three in the dying seconds, but the memory is priceless. She passed away that June.
Don't tell me that college sports don't matter.
I think it's important, as you have, to distinguish the importance of sports from the importance of sports results. I still try to go to one Michigan football game per year with my dad, not because I care who wins, but because my entire childhood I went to every game with him, and I know someday I won't anymore.
It's funny, when I was much younger, my brother and I would rotate between going with our dad and going with our grandfather, each of them having 2 season tickets in different parts of the stadium. As my grandfather got older, he would go to a couple games in October, but the early games were too hot, and the later games were too cold once he was into his 70s. So he started giving me his tickets a few times a year, to take a friend. My 10 year old self was stoked to get to go to a game with a
friend, I didn't have to go with family! My 35 year old self only remembers the games I sat with him, and wishes he could have gone to more. The most memorable game with him was actually a losing effort, the Kordell Stewart hail mary game. The last one I actually sat with him for was the 1998 home finale when Michigan upset a 9-0 Wisconsin team to end their national title hopes. The last time I used his tickets (he kept them, and kept paying for them almost a decade after he went to any games at all anymore) was for the Manningham catch against Penn State in 2005. We actually celebrated his 90th birthday that weekend, and he was in great health, just didn't have home football games in him anymore. He died a week before the 2006 season started.
That's why I'm bummed I couldn't go to a game this year with my dad. The year before I went to the Michigan-Rutgers game. It was lousy. It was freezing, the game was bad, and I would choose to go again in a heartbeat, because one of these games will be the last one I go to with him, and I might not know at the time that it is.