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Wannabe Sports Know-It-All

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I love sports. Mostly watching them, sometimes playing them, and always knowing them. I tried my hand at almost every sport out there, with basketball, football, and soccer being the mainstays throughout the years. I would shoot

First time at the Great Western Forum

baskets in the backyard before and after school almost every day, and would play on nearly five different league, all-star, and tournament soccer teams every year. Although I was pretty good at most of the sports I played, I always knew in the back of my head that playing anything beyond high school probably wasn’t going to happen.

I must have figured this out fairly early, because for as long as I can remember, I wanted to be an ESPN sportscaster; a talking head delivering funny quips along with your sports highlights. I would wake up early, and watch enough SportsCenters back to back until I had them memorized. I was also able to remember copious amounts of random sports knowledge. Everything from statistics, to historical events/players, to intricate player details, I could recall it all. My parents lamented the fact that this knack for memorization wasn’t always focused on subjects taught in school, but the quest for knowledge was directed on sports. People have told me countless times that I know more about sports than anyone they’ve ever met.

Now, I might know a lot about sports, but there are clearly people who know entirely more than I do. Even my 14 year old self knows bookcases worth of more information that I do now. But the passion still remains. There isn’t a day that goes by that I don’t either watch or participate in some kind of sports.

High school football, a religion unto itself.

As the years have progressed, I’ve transitioned from being interested in random sports facts and history, to the intricacies of the sports themselves, and the ways in which people enjoy them. Beyond immersing myself in the nuances of the teams that I support individually, I continue to be intrigued by the events themselves. What is it that brings 100,000+ people to the same exact place on a Saturday, all with the same thing on their mind? Why are some events across the world more like a religious experience than a sporting event?

More recently, I’ve been wondering why the US seems to have the most diversified list of sports. What is it about America and its people that lead them to be so drawn to competition? And more so, why are the sports of choice so different based on what region of the country you live in.Why do people in the South tend to like NASCAR more than people on the coasts? Is it cultural, societal, or purely geographical?

Of course, there’s many more reasons why I’m deciding to head out on this adventure with my wife. With an undertaking like this, there’s going to be many layers of insight and understanding along the way. But my quest for this specific sports knowledge will be at the forefront. And who knows, maybe by the end of this, I might just more about sports than anyone you’ve ever met.


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