this ain't no love letter

I grew up with sports. I loved sports. To me, sports were magic. The crush of a baseball as it hits a bat, the whoosh of a soccer ball as it skims the net, and the nearly silent whistle of a perfect spiral were sounds that I looked forward to with heightened anticipation.

But I've fallen out of love. It wasn't a sudden and unexpected breakup that left me weeping in a pint of ice cream, but rather a slow and unknowing growing apart. One day sports and I were laughing while having picnics in the park, and the next I couldn't look at the screen without feeling a tinge of betrayal. How could I love something so violent and blind?

Football players crash into each other running at their fastest speeds with every muscle in their body aimed at crushing another human being. Baseballs fly off the ends of bats towards the faces of awestruck pitchers. Brains jostle inside fragile skulls. The perceived danger once intrigued me but now I see it isn't just an illusion, the danger is real. Real lives are affected with every hard hit, every knee twist, every helmet-to-helmet collision. 15 yard penalties don't equate to 15 years of lost life. The violence scares me. The violence that captivates a nation.

The curtain was pulled back this year as headlines shone with stories of domestic violence and child abuse. I stopped reading the stories about young men coming from nothing to achieve everything. I read about coverups by league officials and cover up on the faces of wives. I saw pictures of bruises on young bodies and scared gazes plastered on nephews and sisters. I heard expletive laced racial slurs aimed at strangers and cringe worthy bullying aimed at teammates. The tallest, strongest and most powerful individuals in our country were shown to have grown the least. As the world around them grew, sports remained stunted.

I still watch sports. I'll watch the draft, a meaningless Wednesday night baseball game, a friendly international soccer match, but the glamor, that once shined so brightly, is gone.  Wins don't mean as much and losses don't hurt the same.

Stats and stories will still stick in my mind. It's a habit I will never kick. I'll always remember the first time I fell in love with each game, like my own personal highlight reel running through my mind.  I will remember the old highlights with fondness that can't be recreated. A tape playing on a VCR, the quality fading with every rewind.

My life will never be free of sports, it's grip is too tight, its a first love I will never be able to shake. But something happened. Maybe as I grew, sports and I grew apart. Maybe our busy lives are just to hard to sync together. Maybe the real world hardened me to show me nothing is really magic.

I could fall back in love with sports, like a long lost friend who you suddenly see in a new light. But they need to change. Sports: its not me, its you. 

Bad to the Bone

While cat-lovers, cilantro-fans, and SF Giant supporters may already be a tad apprehensive about me and my sports/life ideals, today’s words may prescribe me a lot more doubters. But you know what, those dissenters can make their own blog (and Lose with Wynne does not have the same ring to it).

In sports, as in life, there isn’t supposed to be perfection. Hitting .300 (that’s 3/10 folks, 30%...missing 70%) is good in baseball. No basketball star hits 100% of their free throws (uncontested, set distance shots). Qbs do not throw “perfect” passes and receivers don’t make perfect catches. Because perfect doesn’t exist. Now I could use this time to tell you what a joke the person who wrote “practice makes perfect” is, but I will save that for a rainy day.

I am here to shun perfection. Shun Tom Brady and his unanimous All-Pro Team selection. Laugh at his façade of a perfect, model wife, and an equally perfect child. Cool Tom, real cool-but give me some drama (and I don’t count haircuts as drama). T.Brady is one of those golden boys who everyone is genetically predisposed to liking (women want me, men want to be me, and animals want to learn to talk so they can joke with me).

So guess what Tommy-you, my friend, can join the likes of cat lovers, cilantro, and bandwagon fans in a place I call Hateville, USA. Population-not me. I hear the weather is nice there.

And in my desperate quest to shun perfection I enter a stage of life every girl goes through: bad boys. (Don’t worry mom and dad it’s just a sports metaphor). No, I do not believe Tiger Wood’s indiscretions are becoming, or Big Ben’s allegations are acceptable, or that Michael Vick’s actions are warranted. But yes, I like these guys. Unlike Tom, they have struggled through media barrages, fan hate mail, and management questioning. Focusing on just the game is not an option.

Did they do this to themselves? Yes. Their off-course, off-court, off-field transgressions have led them to the place they are today. Led to doubts and dissenters. Led to trade talks and PTI arguments. But I have seen these bad boys grow. Grow and learn. Tom is the same man that wore the maize and blue in 1999. Twelve years later he is still with the same team who drafted him, he has not changed. More facial hair, more wins, and superbowl rings. But he is the same.

The bad boys have changed. I want these bad boys to win: to win games, to win support and to eventually, win respect. Before they win I want them to understand. Understand respect, understand humility, understand the chance they have been given, and even more, understand the second chance they have been given.

I hope the bad boys are going to make it.

Bad boys, bad boys whatcha gonna do?

"It ain't intramurals, brother"

I imagine you all thought I would have some pretty strong opinions (and witty comments) about the recent firing of Dan Hawkins. Or the event that preceded this firing (aka the straw that broke the buffaloes back, and that is a lot more straw than you need to break a camel’s back, for those of you who don’t know your animal-deadlift stats). The final straw? The fact that the awful Kansas Jayhawks scored 35, yes 35 unanswered points on my Colorado Buffaloes in under 14 minutes, yes under 14 minutes. I’m not talking about a basketball game, because as my March Madness bracket from last year will tell you, I believe Kansas has a good basketball team (thanks for nothing Jayhawks, I had you going to the final).

Anyway, this was their football team. Yes, the football team with a brand new coach who lost 6-3 in their opener to North Dakota State (sometimes, I forget North Dakota is even a state. Bravo, Kansas, bravo). And just a reminder after seeing that score, first, as previously stated, I’m not talking basketball, and now I will let you know I am not talking soccer, or baseball either, still talking football: 6-3 final score.

Did you know, that before beating my Buffs 52-45 they had scored a total of 40 points in the 4 games preceding it? The opposing teams…. had scored 187 points. So when I use the word “awful” to describe the Jayhawks, I don’t mean to offend them or you, if you're one of the 7.2 Jayhawk football fans. I’m just here to state the facts. If nothing has been obvious to you through this blog I hope you see that I am a neutral party when it comes to all sports. (Yes, that was complete BS). But, my oh my, if the Jayhawks are awful, what does that make the Buffs? I don’t think a thesaurus will help me with that; there isn’t a word that has been created in the English language to describe what they have become. If I were creative enough to make a witty word that combines horrendous, awful, embarrassing, painful, piss-poor, and craptastic…that’s what the Buffs would be. So there is my non-opinion on that.

But like I said earlier, I am practically numb to the pain they cause me when they lose. For a regular fan, or perhaps someone who isn’t a complete sports cynic, this was probably a sucker punch loss, yes the kind that feels like a donkey, possibly a bucking bronco has rammed its hoof into your chest and you have no arms to protect yourself (because you are so excited that you are about to win that your arms are raised above your head because you are 28 points ahead in the 4th quarter and there is no possible way that you can lose, oh wait…). Anyway, piss off Buffaloes, you suck and anger me but cause me no pain. Dan Hawkins, I have no opinion on this, I saw this coming, I’m just surprised it took so long. The Hawk seems like a good coach he just couldn’t handle the wild west (since there are Buffaloes in the wild west?). Anywho, there you go, my opinion-less opinions on the Hawk and the Buffaloes.

So Dan, I will leave you with a great intramural team name for the flag football team you’ll be coaching next year: the Stepfathers you hate us because we beat you. Because ask Cody or the rest of the Big 12, the real father ain't doing no beating.

unacceptable loyalities.

Being a sports fan is advantageous in many ways. The players have to worry about the media, the politics, the coaches. There is a rulebook chalked full of personal fouls, ground-rule doubles, offsides, goaltending, and unsportsmanlike conduct. Lucky for the fans we don’t have to worry about 15-yard penalties, fines for technicals, or what any coach thinks. But we have rules. Boy, do we have rules. As a sports fan, it is hard to admit when sports have steered me wrong, but they have. I have broken one of the cardinal rules of sports fandom, and I am ashamed. Where did I go wrong?

What happens when everything you trusted as good and fair did you wrong? It’s like waking up in your grandmother’s house and looking around because you didn’t remember falling asleep there. It’s strange, unfamiliar, and confusing. And then it hits you, you know where you are, but why are you there? I am stuck, and I don’t know how I got here. It’s like I was kidnapped in the middle of the night and tucked snugly into a plush bed at grandma’s house. The sun shines in, the blanket is pulled up over my eyes, but suddenly it’s ripped away. I am the fan of two rival teams. How did this happen?

There is no defining moment I can turn to and blame for this problem. No game, no play, no coach, no player. I don’t know how I got here, but here I am, stuck. Cheering for the Penn State Nittany Lions and the Michigan Wolverines. I want to blame my parents; believe that I was born bleeding navy and white, from my father, and blue and yellow, from my mother. But we all bleed red, no matter how many t-shirts we have that say differently. How could they let this happen?

I have tried to remedy this serious sports illness, but I am think I am suffering from a terminal disorder. I’ve used every trick in the book, done all the prescribed methods: nothing works. I’ve judged character, coaches, jersey style, individual players, play calling, location, and it all comes down to the same result: I am the fan of two rival teams. No solution can fix this detrimental problem. As I write this I am addressing what most say is the first step to recovery: denial. I no longer deny this unforgivable sports sin. I hope the next eleven steps come soon, painless, and easy. But for now, all I can do is admit it: I am the fan of two rival teams.

I dread the day of this Big Ten matchup every year, it reminds me of my wrong doings. Like the pictures from the nights you’d wish to forget, or the camera-caught speeding ticket that gets mailed to your front door. You know it’s there and you’re the culprit, but maybe, just maybe, if we don’t think about it, it will go away. But it doesn’t, there it lies dormant, ready to strike and remind you that you have done wrong. Watching your teams tackle eachother, the colors bleeding together, and then it comes back: I am the fan of two rival teams.

So as I sign off I wish upon you to forgive me, understand that I have tried to fix this. But I am the fan of two rival teams.