There's this thing about me that has caused in my life both physical and emotional pain, a number of hits to my pocketbook, a severe depletion of my available time, and even a modicum of guilt. It's dirty, but it's not-so-secret.
I am a sports fan.
I really don't think of myself as unintelligent or even boring. But consider the evidence: I watch the NFL Network. I will willingly accompany you to any live baseball game -- ANY baseball game. I play golf. I watch golf. I read sports message boards and blogs. I can calculate a goalkeeper's save percentage and a softball pitcher's ERA. I eat walking tacos. I know that Niagara University's mascot is the Purple Eagles -- the horrors!
Among other types of nerdiness (grammar, civics, and sense of humor come to mind...I embrace them all), I am indeed a total sports nerd.
I have friends who have zero interest in sports and, quite frankly, little understanding of sports nerds like me who do. To these people and other acquaintences who run scared when I start talking about assist-to-turnover ratios or Brett Favre's retirement, I am some sort of meat-headed simpleton who blathers fruitlessly about the alleged drama and intrigue of the physical struggle. It definitely makes me feel just a little stupid. And today I would just like to thank the world of sports for making all those people just a little bit more correct about me and how incredibly stupid it is to be a sports fan.
Sports were the reason my husband received a college education. He was good at them, one in particular, and so he didn't have to pay college tuition for five years. For beating his head, chest, arms, mangled fingers, and strained knees as hard as possible into another man 45 times in front of screaming crowds of 40,000 who could be bothered to leave their beer bongs in the minivan and stumble into the stadium, he became a construction engineer. This, I'm sorry, is stupid. (By the way, his knee hurts. Does anyone responsible want to help pay our acupuncture bill?)
People were engrossed in the NBA finals last season only to discover last week that the outcome was more than likely rigged by a crooked referee. This is stupid.
People are dressing up their children in Michael Vick jersies because he is someone worth admiring due to his ability to spin away from linebackers downfield. All the while, he is torturing and killing dogs. Sick and stupid.
Major League Baseball commissioner Bud Selig can't decide how to feel about Barry Bonds being on the cusp of breaking Hank Aaron's home run record and the rest of the country is subjected to news reports about whether or not Selig will come to Bonds' games, get his picture taken with him, or get warm fuzzies about what under any other circumstances would be the sports story of the decade. Meanwhile, Barry Bonds is probably on steroids (would people care that he is probably on steroids if he wasn't also an a$$hole, I wonder?) but no one can prove it and so he just keeps on playing while everyone declares that his accomplishments are tainted. Really, really intensely stupid.
But here's the problem. The life lessons many high schoolers, and even college students, learn from being part of athletics are not stupid. They learn to work as a team, to overcome adversity, to face their fears. They learn to balance their time and believe in themselves. And that's something to be admired -- something beautiful. But dangle a few dollars in front of someone's nose and who knows what he or she will do. Even if it shrinks his penis and shortens his lifespan, an athlete will shoot drugs in his arm. And trust me, I get it: When sports aren't about personal growth and achievement and pushing oneself, they're about getting paid and being famous. And whether it's because this is actually getting worse or just because I am growing more cynical with age, an awareness of this reality is becoming more and more abundant in my brain.
And it makes me like it less and less every day.
Just not enough to not still be a nerd.
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