Dear Professional Sports Fan - Interview
Dear Professional Sports Fan, College Fan, High School Sports Fan, Middle School Sports Fan, Youth Sports Fan, Park N Recreation Fan, and Pee Wee Sports Fan...Why are you so angry and bitter?
Yes, I am talking to you. The diehard sports fan who lives their life through their team and maybe child who plays on the team and takes things WAAAAYYY too seriously! Let’s take a moment and put sports into perspective. I feel I can speak as a subject matter expert on this having played multiple sports since the age of five, having coached sports for 18 years, and being the parent of three boys who have played multiple sports for 18 years…oh yeah, did I mention I have been a Browns, Indians, and Cavalier fan for over 45 years.
Have you never had a bad day where things just didn’t go right? Did someone spill your Starbucks coffee on the sports section of your newspaper this morning? Is your underwear on too tight?
Oh, I understand passion. I understand all about bleeding a team's (not your teams) colors, crying so hard following a high school football loss that I wondered if I had testicles or not. I witnessed The Drive in person, watched The Shot on television, and will never forget when someone punched me in the stomach during the ninth inning of the 1997 World Series Game 7. I've screamed at the television, cursed out the radio, sworn off players who broke my heart and teams that let me down.
But that is where the passion ended for me and the perspective of sports kicked in. While the crazy sports fanatic seems to believe everything that matters in life involves a ball and a watery cup of beer, most passionate fans are just the opposite. We dig sports, embrace sports, devote much of our lives to sports; playing, coaching, teaching, or watching. But come daybreak, 99 percent of us are able to step away and, oh, I don’t know…go on with our life.
So while it hurts to see yet another dismal Browns season playing out before me, and it pains me to see no hope
Yes, I am talking to you. The diehard sports fan who lives their life through their team and maybe child who plays on the team and takes things WAAAAYYY too seriously! Let’s take a moment and put sports into perspective. I feel I can speak as a subject matter expert on this having played multiple sports since the age of five, having coached sports for 18 years, and being the parent of three boys who have played multiple sports for 18 years…oh yeah, did I mention I have been a Browns, Indians, and Cavalier fan for over 45 years.
Have you never had a bad day where things just didn’t go right? Did someone spill your Starbucks coffee on the sports section of your newspaper this morning? Is your underwear on too tight?
Oh, I understand passion. I understand all about bleeding a team's (not your teams) colors, crying so hard following a high school football loss that I wondered if I had testicles or not. I witnessed The Drive in person, watched The Shot on television, and will never forget when someone punched me in the stomach during the ninth inning of the 1997 World Series Game 7. I've screamed at the television, cursed out the radio, sworn off players who broke my heart and teams that let me down.
But that is where the passion ended for me and the perspective of sports kicked in. While the crazy sports fanatic seems to believe everything that matters in life involves a ball and a watery cup of beer, most passionate fans are just the opposite. We dig sports, embrace sports, devote much of our lives to sports; playing, coaching, teaching, or watching. But come daybreak, 99 percent of us are able to step away and, oh, I don’t know…go on with our life.
So while it hurts to see yet another dismal Browns season playing out before me, and it pains me to see no hope