April 5, 2005
-
ARE THERE ANTI-PSYCHOTIC DRUGS AVAILABLE TO TREAT MARCH MADNESS?
There are roughly six billion people on this planet. This means that there are approximately three billion males, and I have become convinced that I am the only male out of that population (with the possible exception of the guys on Queer Eye) that was born without the “sports gene.”
What is the “sports gene” you ask?
It is the gene that causes half-naked fat guys to paint their bodies in the colors of their favorite NFL team and sit for hours in sub-zero weather to cheer on their team and wave enormous foam fingers at the camera.
It is the gene that causes a man who wouldn’t be caught dead crying at his own wife’s funeral to call a radio sports show and weep bitterly on air about a person he has never met dropping a fly ball to lose a game that was played 20 years ago.
It is the gene that causes Brazilian soccer fans to routinely trample each other to death.
It is the gene that just caused my otherwise sane son to drive 20 straight hours from
Yes, it’s true, I have no sports gene. And even though the statement I’m about to make will cause grown men to shake their heads in disgust, old people to faint, and mothers to clasp their hands over the ears of their young children, I’m going to make it anyway - I have absolutely no interest in college or professional athletics. There….I said it.
It probably has something to do with the fact that I was born without any discernable athletic ability. (I seriously mean without any).
My father was desperate for me to be an athlete so I dutifully went out for every sport offered in Jr. High and High School. And I played them all….for at least two weeks, until they made the first cuts. The only team I actually made was the tennis team, and the only reason I made it was because it was a 12 man team and only 12 people went out. Not only did I not play an actual match all season, but they purposely didn’t tell me when the yearbook picture was being taken so that there would be no historical record of me ever being associated with the team.
I may be the only person in the world who has actually been asked not to play on their churches’ coed softball team. Do you have any idea how bad you have to be to be asked not to play on a church coed softball team?!?!?!
Please understand that even though I have made light of the effects of the sports gene, I am not judging those who possess it, or am I criticizing them in any way. In fact, if there was some South American clinic where doctors from the bottom third of their graduating classes were doing some type of gene therapy that might allow me to at last understand why March Madness actually seems to make people crazy, I would be on the first plane, jeep, donkey, or pontoon boat, to get there.
Not having the sports gene has caused me to become a social pariah. No one ever invites me to their Super Bowl party. The guys from the office don’t ask me to join them after work to go to the local sports bar, even though I would be perfectly content to go there and simply eat chicken wings and ogle the scantily clad waitresses while everyone else watches the game.
The only person who is happy that I don’t posses the sports gene is my wife. While other men spend all weekend planted firmly in their lazy boys with one hand on the remote and the other on a cold beer, I’m free to help my wife work in our flower beds.
I’m not crazy, and I’m not gay; I just don’t have any interest in sports.
I see other people pulling the shirts over each others heads at hockey games, and throwing beer on basketball players that cold-cock fans and I wish I could develop that kind of passion, but alas, I’m an empty shell.
I salute the die-hard sports fans who are reading this and I admire your devotion to the pantheon of athletic achievement. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to get back to our flower beds.
(Edit: I actually did end up watching the NCAA women’s final game and I’d like to point out that the reason Baylor won is because my son is the academic tutor for the team, which is why he was in
SIC EM LADY BEARS!!!
2005 NCAA CHAMPIONS
Comments (8)
i have your sports gene! i must have somebody’s. i mean, here i am, a girl — a person of the female persuasion — and yet, i don’t cook, think martha stewart is the anti-christ, and have not a single clue what women talk about in the kitchen when they gather at parties. wait, i don’t even know where things go in my own kitchen. i am completely devoid of the kitchen gene. but sports? whoo baby, i know my sports.
My husband doesn’t have much of a sports gene either but makes up for it with an overactive sci-fi gene. (Can you say nerd?)
I play chess, I used to play rugby too, but not very well, I only played cos the club beer was cheap.
I don’t watch sport on the telly, too busy doing things I like.
Okay. It makes me thrilled to know that there are heterosexual men out there who do not like sports! Maybe I’ll catch one of those!
No, you are not the only one. My own dear husband ignores sports too, for which I am eternally grateful. Maybe you should start a club.
God love you–you’re not the only straight man without much interest in sports. I grew up with one, married another, and spawned another still. But I know what you mean about being a pariah: my poor teenaged son is definitely out of the loop, because as we all know, athletic acumen is good for the street cred when you’re a male teen. Like his uncle and father, he’s just more artistically inclined. And we seldom get invited to the Superbowl parties because our friends know we’re not really fans. But we’d go just to hang out with them, you know? I’m with you and your wife on this one–a little sports fanaticism goes a long way!
I have the college sports gene, but I also have the “why the heck do people get paid so much for professional sports” gene that causes deep disgust at most professional sporting events. I personally love Dave Barry’s discussion of the sports gene
Nah, you’re not alone. You just can’t see the other straight males because most of the nerdy (aka HOT) guys are playing Everquest.