I know I've talked about our love for good reality TV before, but yesterday I came to the realization that reality TV is our replacement for sports. Like all those sport fans out there, Jason and I clap and yell as we root for our favorite contestant on our favorite reality shows. We are just like them, but instead of watching someone get a homer or a touchdown we prefer watching someone make the best lamb on Top Chef or witness someone sing extremely well on American Idol. The judges are always particular and really intense, keeping you on the edge of you seat as to what them final decision will be.
We couldn't fit sport's watching into our agenda even if we wanted to. We have enough on our plates watching Idol, SYTYCD, Top Chef, Survivor and Project Runway every year. Everyone has their preferences and our seems pretty cheesy to those who don't understand, but to us it's the best sports to watch on TV.
Showing posts with label sports. Show all posts
Showing posts with label sports. Show all posts
Thursday, August 27, 2009
Friday, March 27, 2009
Sports Figures...on Drugs. [BUM BUM BUMMMM]]
Steroids in baseball. Michael Phelps smoking grass. Assorted sports figures from multiple arenas brought up on charges for a host of felonies. What does it mean? Most sports people I know feel we are in dangerous times for professional athletics.
I, on the other hand, feel like all of this is a very positive thing for the American people. It's hopefully making people recognize that sports figures, even the most talented, are just people. They never asked to be role models. They just wanted to play baseball, or swim really $%#* fast. We made them into people to look up to. People our children should model themselves after. We decided to hold them up on a pedestal, from which anyone would eventually fall.
Why would we trust them like that? We don't know anything about them, as people. We've never met them. We don't know who they socialize with, what they believe in, or what they do after the cameras go dark. If we applied those same criteria to some random joe on the street, would you blindly trust your children to them then? Likely not.
But we don't have to make blanket statements here. It's not, as an absolute rule, bad to use sports figures as role models. But use them only for what you know about them. Let them demonstrate how determination, hard work, and sheer force of will can accomplish great things. Let them demonstrate how anyone can be successful, if they try hard enough. Just don't expect them to be morally upright (by your definition) members of society, ready for you to pin your hopes for your children on their actions.
They're just people. Great at some things. Bad at others.
It would be extremely positive if more parents were role models, instead of some random NFL running back.
I, on the other hand, feel like all of this is a very positive thing for the American people. It's hopefully making people recognize that sports figures, even the most talented, are just people. They never asked to be role models. They just wanted to play baseball, or swim really $%#* fast. We made them into people to look up to. People our children should model themselves after. We decided to hold them up on a pedestal, from which anyone would eventually fall.
Why would we trust them like that? We don't know anything about them, as people. We've never met them. We don't know who they socialize with, what they believe in, or what they do after the cameras go dark. If we applied those same criteria to some random joe on the street, would you blindly trust your children to them then? Likely not.
But we don't have to make blanket statements here. It's not, as an absolute rule, bad to use sports figures as role models. But use them only for what you know about them. Let them demonstrate how determination, hard work, and sheer force of will can accomplish great things. Let them demonstrate how anyone can be successful, if they try hard enough. Just don't expect them to be morally upright (by your definition) members of society, ready for you to pin your hopes for your children on their actions.
They're just people. Great at some things. Bad at others.
It would be extremely positive if more parents were role models, instead of some random NFL running back.
Sunday, February 22, 2009
Pool...Recreation for the Recreationally Challenged
If I were to draw up a list of the organized sports that I was reasonably good at, it would look like this:
1.
2.
3.
And this isn't truly accurate. If it were it wouldn't extend past one, but a list with only entry isn't a list. Thankfully making lists isn't an organized sport, because that wouldn't be one you'd find on my list either.
But I can play pool. Pretty well. I'm no Paul Newman or Tom Cruise, but I can play better than their stunt doubles. Pool, or "billiards" to the Tom Collins crowd, is a game designed for people like me. People with hand/eye coordination and a competitive streak that can't play games with the word "ball" in them. It helps boost our confidence. It proves that even geeks more prone to Dungeons and Dragons than Monday Night Football can excel at a sport that requires practice, coordination, and strategic thinking.
And pool is one of the few sports where you can actively engage in competition while drinking a beer...or a Tom Collins. And if you learn to shoot one-handed you can do both simultaneously! I'd like to see a running back try that. Or a forward. Or someone double-fisting a Yagerbomb and a baseball bat. You could be arrested if you tried it in Nascar.
I challenge anyone to name me a better pastime, one that combines the glory of skillful competition, the indoors, climate-control, and adult beverages.
Yeah...I didn't think so.
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