I hate sports.
But just for the sake of family bonding, I took my son over to my parent’s house to watch the BYU vs. Utah game. My daughters came too, though they did not watch the game, but instead played with “Grammie’s toys.”
What an excellently played game. Utah did well, but not as well as I was expecting. BYU did far better than I expected. Really, BYU lost in my opinion due to three factors: 1) the idiots ran the ball on a 4th down when they should have kicked a field goal, 2) there was that bad call that got called as a fumble when it wasn’t, 3) they missed their final field goal.
Especially #3, of course, because the other two can’t be directly tied to the loss in a straightforward cause and effect manner.
Also note that my justifications above are the rational equivalent to saying: “Utah only won because they scored more points as per the rules of the game.” Sort of takes the justification wind out of my sails. Though somehow it makes me feel like I have a moral victory – though now I’m going to have to wonder if I just proved moral victories don’t actually exist.
After it was all done, and the Utah’s walked away with their victory, my oldest daughter came in and asked “Who was playing?” My son and I told her it was BYU and Utah. She then asked, “Who won?” We told her Utah did.
“Oh! I was voting for Utah!” she exclaimed.
My son then needled her for having decide whom she was voting for after she knew who had won. She replied – mind you with complete veracity, “No, I was voting for Utah from the beginning.”
You know, I almost believe her. Since I hate sports, I never talk about teams. So she had no parental prejudice towards BYU just because I and her mother had both attended there. In fact, she didn’t know either of us did.
Furthermore, I’m not sure she even knows what BYU is. (For example, my son had to explain to her that they were near us. But then again, he thought UVU and University of Utah was the same school, so maybe that doesn’t mean much.)
But she surely knows what “Utah” is – that’s her home state! So maybe, given two names (i.e. Utah and BYU) maybe she really had made up her mind — prior to asking who won – that she was voting for Utah.
Worse yet, she and her little sister were both wearing read that day. So maybe she planned this all in advance and she actually knows more about sports than I do.
Yup, that’s probably it.
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That was cute.
Nah, UVU and Utah are pretty much the same school.
Hum.. I am also not fond of sports, and my kids take after me. As far as my boys, I think I am raising “perfect husbands”. My oldest son Tex says, shaking his head in disbelief, “Grown men chasing a ball!” Instead of watching football for Thanksgiving, we watched a Harry Potter marathon of DVDs.
Am I the only one who thinks professional football and the NBA have gotten incredibly dull?
I still love the passion of college basketball and football, however.
Geoff,
No. I completely agree. I think the way contracts are written now have made it dull. I mean, what’s the motivation for a player to play well? To increase his marketability for a higher future contract and endorsements. Winning and losing is a side benefit. There needs to be some sort of winning clause in the contracts. Or even better, they need to institute relegation like the English Premier (Soccer) League. Kick out the bottom teams.
JA Benson,
Not to burst your bubble, but I’m only going to believe you have successfully created “perfect husbands” in this regard if you can — with a straight face — tell me that they also don’t like video games, nor role playing games, nor trading card games, nor cars, nor trucks, nor the stock market, nor comic books, nor Star Wars, nor Lord of the Rings, nor any of a jillion other ‘maleness’ items that become obessions in our lives (in place of sports) and still make our wives mad at us because we keep spending time with those hobbies instead of with them. 😉
“UVU and Utah are pretty much the same school”
I still remember that soon after I moved from California to attend BYU that I met a guy that said he went to Utah and I said “Oh, you go to Utah State?”
Bad Move!
Worse yet, he expected me to hate merely because he went to U of U and I to BYU even though I was from out of state.
AWWW Come on Bruce! Don’t destroy my fantasy! 🙂
Geoff B, you are not the only one. There are a few professional players who can make a team worth following in crunch time, but most pro games it seems like both sides are just in some sort of attrition contest. Not that that doesn’t take real endurance, but it is boring.
It is also hard to feel loyal to players who don’t stick around very long, or are models of bad behavior, or seem to be in it primarily for the money. And a team composed of such players? It is hard to care. I want to cheer for a team that represents a standard of excellence on and off the field, and makes the place they hail from proud to claim them as representatives, even adoptive ones, of what makes their community great.
Bruce N, I know a lot of U. fans who seem to hate BYU as a matter of principle. Most BYU fans, on the other hand, just don’t care enough to hate anyone. Notable exceptions apply.