I want to play, watch, and talk about sports all the time. I just don't want people talking about sports at my funeral someday. Is that too much to ask?
Play
One of my favorite movies is Rudy. Fortune tells Rudy, "You're 5 foot nothin', 100 and nothin', and you have barely a speck of athletic ability." I love this quote. It basically sums me up; I am a terrible athlete. I love to play, but I haven't been blessed with many physical gifts. I really enjoy playing all sports. I just prefer to play in the backyard and even better if it is with plastic equipment. Competing against my young nieces and nephews usually gives me the best chance for a victory.
Anytime I play with adult men I am reminded what idiots we all are. You hear me adults? Chill out when you are playing games with a ball! I haven't played against anyone in recreational sports who is headed to the Olympics anytime soon.
Watch
Nothing fills an afternoon like a BYU football or basketball game with a nightcap featuring the Utah Jazz. Just don't plan on having any other hobbies between September and April. Watching sports is an incredible time suck. Often my friends joke about attending BYU football games as our part-time jobs. The people I sit with haven't missed very many games in the last 20 years. Why do we feel committed to support our teams even when they are terrible? I mentioned BYU and the Utah Jazz. No, I don't like the Los Angeles Lakers, USC, or the New York Yankees. Simply put, my teams won't be finishing #1 anytime soon; it always ends in heartbreak.
Talk
As a junior high school student I once skipped school to call David Locke's daytime, sports radio show. While speaking on the air with Mr. Locke, my father walked in and caught me missing school. I can't remember the punishment, but I do remember my first sports soap box.
Unfortunately, everyone is a sports genius. Let's just assume I had a little nugget of sports wisdom to bestow on the universe. You would never know it because sports fans already know everything and think that talking the loudest and most often is the only way to communicate. Sports fans can be so obnoxious.
Blog
Because I want diverse topics discussed at my funeral someday, I have been trying not to advertise my passion for sports. For example when I joined Twitter, I made it a goal to not tweet about sports. Twitter is public, and I wanted my passion for sports to remain private.
Fail. Over 25% of my tweets are sports related.
With this being my first blog post, I embrace my passion for sports. I like and dislike much about the wide world of sports, and it will probably became a common theme for what I write and think about going forward on this blog.
4 comments:
Mike, its ok if you are not athletically gifted like the rest of us. You are gifted in other ways. You are hilarious for one thing. You are good at making things out of different kinds of pasta. Your pep talks always make me feel better when I bum a ride off of you. You have great hair. And last, but not least, you'll probably never end up killing someone or going to jail for serious white collar crimes. I enjoyed your blog post too. I don't think I am as passionate about sports as you are, but I do think I waste a lot of time on them. I, like you, never root for the favorite and as a result am cursed to feel the heartbreak all the time. I liked the Kings when the Lakers were awesome. I liked the Red Sox and Rangers before they both became good. And of course, I love BYU which has actually been the cause of most of my fights with Lisanne. She's a big cougar fan, but one of those that loves to diss on them. I always find myself defending the Cougs even though they don't deserve it. Oh well, that's sports for you.
Mike, this is a great post! I didn't know you love sports! Don't feel too bad about your ability to play sports. I did high jump during high school and that was not the sport for me for obvious reason! Who cares.
I hear ya - my concern is my passion for technology pulling me into the tech nerd realm and overpowering my ability to be seen as anything else.
And about Rudy - you really aren't too far off from him by winning off your nieces/nephews. Apparently he recently sought out peeps weaker than him to make winning an easier task:
http://bit.ly/zYFnWx
Rudy. Rudy. Rudy!
I'm with you on sports, why do we support the teams we support? Clearly it's not because we feel the need to associate ourselves with world class greatness.
The more interesting question I think is in our fan psychology, why is it that if we watch our team lose it can affect the rest of our day or weekend to the point that we kick the neighbors dog, wont talk the misses, and lose our all appetite. When in reality the game has absolutely zero to do with the fan, who invested nothing into the win except to plop down on a the sofa and reach for the remote control. How is it that we get so emotionally wrapped up in a contest that has zero bearing on us?
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