charliedon'tsurf wrote:

STF wrote:

charliedon'tsurf wrote:

Isabelle Gall wrote:Sports: So macho, so heterosexual....

Yeah, but by the same token so male-worshipping and homoerotic. Sweaty muscular men in tight clothing rubbing up against each other and patting fellow players on the butt between plays. It is as dudecore as a Turkish bath house despite how macho it fronts.

You're an idiot.

You’re an asshole. Want to keep this game going? It seems as tedious as sports.

What's tedious is typical critiques of sports. Saying that there's something gay about following sports is just a lame way to insult sports fans and is a distortion of the truth. It gives men something to talk about and do together. Saying that men are sexually attracted to professional athletes is just stupid.

It's also a typical and tedious crtitique to say that people should be concerned with more important things and that sports is some kind of conspiracy to distract people. People should have time to follow sports and other things.

charliedon'tsurf wrote:Yeah, but by the same token so male-worshipping and homoerotic. Sweaty muscular men in tight clothing rubbing up against each other and patting fellow players on the butt between plays.

...yyyyyyyep, not seeing the downside here...

I would echo the salut!s being bestowed upon Ty Webb for his insightful post regarding this topic.

Ya know what one of my favorite things about sports is? People of different creeds, races, and political beliefs coming together to root root root for the home team. Look, be all jaded and "i hate idiot people" all you want; i get that way too. But a sporting event is one of those things that can get people who would normally never associate with each other to come together in a common bond of camaraderie, and that is a healthy and good thing. Even if sports aren't particularly your bag, i can't see the downside of getting different people together to mingle once in a while. Watch the end of Major League when the blue-collar guy hugs the punk rocker after the Indians win the pennant, and you'll see what i'm getting at. It's a comedy film, but that scene, exaggerated and 80s cheesy as it is, sums up the beauty of sport to me.

NOT CRAP.

John CIV wrote:For the most part, I find sport in general boring as fuck.

I agree with this, but my girlfriend is pretty much the polar opposite of this. She played both soccer and basketball (quite well, I might add), in high school, college, and beyond. She watches sports on tv quite often.

I've never really played team sports, at least not well. I did wrestle and swim (I was good at those) in Jr. High and early high school, but for me, the competitive aspect of it was a turn off, and really distracted me from the aspects of it I liked.

I do like outdoor physical activities, such as hiking, fishing, kayaking, snowshoeing, etc., so I am not just a couch potato when it comes to physical activities in general.

The whole rah rah team mentality just does nothing for me.

By the way, I did not vote crap or not crap, since I am comfortable with others enjoying these things, and don't feel, there is plenty of room for everyone here.

It does bug me when the sports obsessed make a big deal about it or stupid comments when I say I have no interest in team sports. Then, it gets REALLY annoying.

The people who are pro-sports seem to think that the people who are anti-sports object to the commercialism.

Nope. It could be my best friend out on the field, I still couldn't view it as anything but pointless.

However, during the world cup I had the entire town to myself. No cars, nothing. It was awesome. If that could happen every week I'd root for sports.

DrAwkward wrote:Even if sports aren't particularly your bag, i can't see the downside of getting different people together to mingle once in a while.

DrAwkward wrote:Ya know what one of my favorite things about sports is? People of different creeds, races, and political beliefs coming together to root root root for the home team.

Or, the same with opposing teams and drunken fools beating the shit out of each other regardless of race, creed, musculature, beards just because you happen to have a Blue shirt instead of a Red one. Beautiful.

Baby. Bath water.

zom-zom wrote:

DrAwkward wrote:Ya know what one of my favorite things about sports is? People of different creeds, races, and political beliefs coming together to root root root for the home team.

Or, the same with opposing teams and drunken fools beating the shit out of each other regardless of race, creed, musculature, beards just because you happen to have a Blue shirt instead of a Red one. Beautiful.

Like soccer hooligans? I suspect they care less about the game, and more about the potential for a fight after, or even during, the game.

Playing football for thirteen years taught me a lot about discipline and perseverance (even when it isn't "fun"), qualities which I think have served me well as an artist. I have so many talented friends who are simply lazy and who bullshit themselves as to why they aren't more successful and fulfilled by their work. I have, for the most part, avoided such thinking because football also taught me to loath excuses, to accept responsibility for my own actions and to blame myself when I failed. I truly believe that these character traits have made me a more productive artist, a more inspiring teacher, and a better person. Maybe I could have picked them up elsewhere, but the gridiron is where I got 'em.

Then again, football has pretty much ruined my body, so there's a definite waffle factor.

As far as watching sports goes, I imagine that I enjoy it for the same reason most folks do--as a welcome respite from the tedium and hard work by which one supports oneself. And, as others have pointed out, it's an opportunity to bridge cultural and socioeconomic distances through shared support of a team or affinity for a particular sport. When I'm working out at the Y, when I tell somebody that I'm an English teacher, they tend to clam up--maybe because they fear I'll correct them (or that they'll sound "dumb"), maybe because they're Rush Limbaugh conservatives and assume I'm part of the "cultural elite." But if sports gets broached before vocation, we're good to go.

It always surprises me when so many musicians come out as sports-haters. In the South, it's generally not this way. Just about everyone I know in Louisville--most of whom are artists, writers, and musicians--like sports in some form, and many are rabid fans. This holds true for Nashville to some extent, too.

I have a theory as to why most rock stars are so small (the Stones, AC/DC, Dylan, Lou Reed, Iggy, Prince, James Brown, etc.). Most kids who are big end up playing sports, so it's the little guys who end up staying indoors and learning a musical instrument. Of course, there are notable exceptions like Gibby Haynes and that freak from Midnight Oil. But are they actually musicians?

In other words, I'm saying that all you sports-haters are probably pussies. I can't say I blame you, though. You'd get slaughtered out there.