If you’ll permit me to do so, I’d like to share an athletic secret with you.
OK?
Even though I love sports, I was never very good at playing them.
Whether it was the back and forth of the soccer field, the stop and go of the baseball diamond, or the pant and wheeze of the track (at least that’s how I ran), my athletic star was as dim as Polaris is bright.
However—in an eerie foreshadowing of my career as a journalist—long hours, hard work, and sometimes less-than-satisfying returns didn’t ultimately deter me from loving the game.
While I’m still hacking away at this reporter game, I eventually had to transition from being a wannabe athlete trying his best on the field to a sports fan hooting and hollering on the couch, as many do.
As it happens, it was a recent rousing discussion about the merits of such fandom that inspired this column.
You see, as I was attempting to talk sports the other day with my sports-averse colleagues (which is almost all of them), I was surprised to be confronted with a notion (and an argument) that I consider antiquated: That all sports, nay, the entire sporting world, is filled with dumb jocks and wannabe meatheads who aren’t worth associating with.
In brief, they argued that sports are dumb, and so is most everybody who willingly associates with them.
Now, I’m acutely aware that there’s an inherent silliness and hypocrisy in the land of armchair quarterbacks and Green Bay Packers Pillow Pets® (yes, I do own one), but I was genuinely shocked to hear this sentiment.
In the year 2015, I’m surprised to hear that people still feel that way. Nobody denies that the sporting community has its fair share of lunkheads—the type that can only think about:
A) crushing skulls.
B) destroying the other team.
And C) what snacks they’ll consume during time not allotted for A and B—but those guys are fewer and farther between these days, in my humble opinion.
Some may say that I’m not the typical sports fan and so my view is biased, but I turn that question right back around on those folks: Who is the typical sports fan, and who is the typical athlete?
Take Craig Breslow, for example. He’s been an excellent relief pitcher for various Major League Baseball teams since 2005, making his living throwing baseballs. However, he also scored a 1420 on the SAT exam and has a bachelor’s degree in molecular biophysics and biochemistry from Yale University.
Breslow actually conducts genetic research during the offseason, and he has a standing offer of admission from New York University’s medical school, just in case he wants to pursue another career path post-baseball.
Lest you think Breslow is an outlier, here’s just a smattering of many other smart athletes out there: Marion Bartoli, a Wimbledon-winning tennis player with an 175 IQ; Ryan Fitzpatrick, NFL quarterback and Harvard economics grad; and Matt Bonner, a forward for the San Antonio Spurs who held a 3.96 GPA in college and enjoys Scrabble and math games in his free time. I could go on … .
Of course, not every athlete is an academic star, and there are many who are far from stellar academics or role models. I’m not denying that. It’s worth noting, however, that the athletes listed above are solely stereotypically “smart” athletes.
Since there are so many different types of intelligence, it’s fair to say almost all of those who play any sport on a higher level, IQ aside, are undeniably adept in many skilled areas—from play memorization to research to communication.
So, what about the fans? The image of a shirtless, beer-bellied man painted in his home team’s garish colors and drunkenly braying definitely comes to mind and, let’s face it, you and I both know some sports fans like that.
That said, I think it’s high time for our collective notion of “the sports fan”—and our collective image of anyone involved with sports, for that matter—to get a modern upgrade.
For starters, some of the most intelligent, interesting, and engaging people I’ve ever met have also been diehard sports fans. Enjoying watching men (and women) in uniform compete against each other on the playing field does not preclude someone from being a worthwhile, rational member of society.
Even outside of my own experience, that fact is still extremely evident. Look no further than the bevy of wildly popular, recently created sports blogs which traffic in more informed, intelligent commentary: ESPN’s Grantland and FiveThirtyEight, the SBNation army of individual team sites, and Gawker Media’s Deadspin, among many others.
That kind of increase in smart sports coverage supply simply doesn’t come about without a subsequent uptick in demand for said coverage from smart fans. Meatheads need not apply (or read, as it were).
Additionally, as our society becomes increasingly awash in technology, analysis, and statistics, such a paradigm shift has also come (albeit at a slower pace) to the sporting universe.
For proof: Look to the amazing advances recently seen in sports technology, sports medicine, and sports analysis. Did you know that almost all professional teams in the four major American sports now employ several in-house statisticians/analysts?
I mean, there’s even an entire program on national TV called “SportScience” dedicated to geeking out about the various angles, velocities, and spins necessary to create some of the most memorable plays in sports.
Choosing whether or not to like sports is absolutely an individual choice that I respect a great deal. After all, there’s nothing worse than being stuck watching something you despise—I’m looking at you, seventh-grade production of Les Miserables from my nightmares.
All that I ask from the sports haters out there is to realize that sports people are people, too.
Underneath all the ridiculous amounts of merch, vague odor of nacho cheese, and questionable time allocation choices, we’re really not so different after all.
Rhys Heyden is a staff writer for New Times, the Sun’s sister paper to the north. He can be reached at rheyden@newtimesslo.com.
This article appears in Jan 8-15, 2015.