I don’t care about anything I can’t do myself. I care about computer gaming and net neutrality, because I’m on the internet a lot and I play WoW. I care about workers comp and auto accidents because I take claims for a living. The only sport I have ever cared about was drum corps, back when I was in marching band in high school. I don’t care about sports because I don’t play any.
When I was a kid, I played softball for 7 years, basketball for 1 year, marching band for 7 years, and did cheer camp in elementary school. With the exception of marching band (which is not really a sport anyway), I am just not a sports person. I hated softball once I was old enough to realize that I sucked at it (and my parents wouldn’t take me to practices or buy me spikes or sliding pads or play catch with me, so I got further and further behind as I got older), I was too fat to be a cheerleader, and my basketball coach made me cry after we had to run laps for the number of free throws we missed–at age 7–so my mom didn’t make me go back.
Do you literally have so little imagination that you can’t put yourself in the shoes of a person who doesn’t like sports? Grow up, guy. I don’t go around mystified that not everybody on the planet likes World of Warcraft.
They “obviously” promote nothing of the kind. Ideally they do promote these things, yes, but . . . for some of us, our early experiences playing sports involved humiliation from, and sometime being deliberately injured by, our “teammates,” at the same time the “leaders” looked the other way. I did not receive any good lessons about human nature from my early involvement with sports.
I spent most of my youth avoiding exercise because I sucked at sports, only realizing later I could enjoy physical activities without being on a team.
I also disliked the huge huge emphasis on “sports” (as opposed to, say, health and exercise, which you do mention and I consider separate entities) in school when it was clear to me that I was surrounded by people who really needed to spend more time learning how to read and less time passing balls back and forth.
I’ve found people who agonize over how boring and pointless they find sports to be tend to be humorless, boring people. I’m not talking about people who simply don’t like sports,but the ones who are so vehemently against them they make a mantra out of it.
Oddly, their opposites, those who are so sports crazy they refuse to accept how anybody not feel the same, usually only feel that way about a handful of sports and actually hate any sports that are similar to, but not quite like their favorites.
So as with most things, both extremes are ridiculous in their own way.
I used to really enjoy NFL, 10 hours plus on Sunday. Whole game Monday, whole game Thursday. The past couple years I found that I just don’t have the patience anymore. It is still the only sport I care about but thank OG for DVR. When I have the good TV, I can start watching about 45 minutes late and never have to watch commercials. And the games are half commercials. The night games I tend to record the second half and zip thru it in the morning. I’m usually up by 5 anyway and don’t leave for work until after 7.
Other sports, can’t usually stand to watch. If the Cubs are in contention I’ll start watching a few innings in September. I watch the 2nd half of some NBA playoff games.
But I will watch golf, at least the big tournaments. On Sunday afternoon. And the last 20 laps of a NASCAR race on a big track.
Sit down and watch the whole game/event commercials and all. No thanks, not anymore, I have a house to take care of.
My parents enrolled me in countless different sports as a kid, but none of them stuck. They’re all just so arbitrary. The rules have no purpose other than to attempt to make the game more exciting.
I enjoy solitary sports like skiing, where there’s no win or lose condition (competitive skiing is again boring).
I do like competitive board/card/etc. games, but at least these usually have some intellectual value. And even at that, I find myself becoming annoying if one of the players is too competitive. It makes the whole exercise feel like work instead of something fun.
The only time I care a little bit about sports is during the World Cup and the Olympics. And the Grand Slam tennis tournaments. But I don’t hate them and I don’t think they’re dumb.
One reason I don’t enjoy participating in athletics is that it requires you to spend a lot of time with assholes. Sports tend to bring out the worst in a lot of people, somi avoid them the same way and for the same reason I avoid drunk people.
Well, I swam, wrestled, bowled, and played softball (fast-pitch church league) competitively when I was younger, so I can understand the enjoyment of playing sports. However, I can not force myself to watch any pro sports on T.V. or to pay to attend any such non-event.
I don’t mean to insult anyone here, and just so were focused let’s try to keep it around playing sports. It’s just simple to me, being athletic and fit is a good thing, not being that is a bad thing. now, I understand people have different abilities and some are less fortunate, but you should still strive to be physically fit. Sports do a great job of promoting this, probably more than any other institution we have out there.
Take me for example. My parents smoke. My relatives smoke. My friends smoke. I’m a non-smoker and attribute it completely to living the sports lifestyle growing up. It didn’t mesh with what I was doing and allowed me to pass that time in your life where you’re most susceptible to peer pressure.
Now, it doesn’t work out like that all the time. But EVERYONE on my wrestling team in college, is a non-smoker. In fact, I’ve never come across a serious athlete who was a smoker. If everyone played sports maybe there’d be no smoking?
That’s a horrible example. If you don’t love Jane Austen, something is clearly wrong with you. I think it’s even listed in the next DSM. Anyone who says different is also, obviously, 'flicted.
You have sports confused with exercise. A lot of professional players of various sports use drugs or other extreme methods to try to improve their performance. Steroids, anyone? And in the past, a lot of players smoked and drank and used other drugs. Babe Ruth, for instance, was well known for his drinking and womanizing. I believe that he also smoked like a chimney.
These days, yes, athletes are less likely to smoke, but that’s a change in the common culture. Athletes used to smoke a LOT. While your friends and relatives smoke, you are not under nearly the social pressure to smoke that I was, because I grew up during the time that cigarettes were openly advertised on TV, and when cigarette ads were extremely common. Reader’s Digest used to state quite proudly that they didn’t accept cigarette ads, and they were correct in that they were very nearly the only mainstream magazine that didn’t do so.
Sports frequently require the players to do things that are quite unhealthy, though this has decreased from when I was young. These days, parents and coaches are far more concerned about workouts during heat waves.
And some of us would rather improve our minds than our bodies. Or we have families. Taking care of kids, in particular, is more than a full time job. And when you combine family and work, you might not have the luxury of sports, other than maybe a couple of hours a week.
How old are you? Do you support yourself financially? What obligations do you have? What goals do you have? How much time do you devote to sports, as opposed to other activities? And, most importantly, do you have any negative memories of sports? Did you have some ongoing negative experiences, such as Broomstick’s, where playing sports resulted in you being in pain without any positive results?
Yes, for the most part. All kinds. Hardly anytime for sports anymore. Yes, i had some negative experiences but nearly everyone does. There is only one champion. But safe to say, overall they were a very positive experience, and it was the same with nearly everyone I encountered.
I don’t think you can confuse sports with exercise. They are nearly synonymous. Most sports require exercise. And I think that is the important part. BHow many less obese people might we have with more sports players?
I play sports and love watching sports but Scotty Mo you have one weird premise.
You might not realize this but there is a lot of natural-born talent involved in playing sports. You can’t just wake up one day and decide you’re going to be a major-league pitcher or a world-class wrestler. You need some certain genetic qualities, some mental leanings and the opportunity to get out and find that sport or sports that fit you.
If you don’t have that natural talent you might never be good enough no matter how hard you tried. And if you do have that natural talent you might not have all the right pieces to be good.
Trust me - sports get boring, tedious and painful if you stick around for too long while not being good. It’s even worse if you try your hardest and you’re still not good.
So the answer to your question is simply “not everyone is good at sports” for various reasons, and people find them unappealing.
There are other ways to get exercise and be fit and learn all that stuff that you have learned from sports. You’re blessed to have had the talent, ability and drive to excel at and enjoy a life of sporting. Kudos!
Believe me, I know all about natural talent in sports. I was one of the ones that didn’t have enough. However, they always have different leagues. Take NCAA, for instance – they have Division I, II, and III.
You didn’t get actually physically sick on a regular basis from playing sports, though. And you had generally positive experiences. Not being the champion is nowhere near the negative experience that becoming physically ill on a repeated basis. Many people have only negative experiences. Maybe you haven’t run into many people like this, but that’s probably because you tend to hang out with people who are more sports oriented. I, for instance, almost never hang out with people who aren’t interested in reading, and I rarely hang out with people who are extremely sports oriented. My husband watches sports, and I do have some friends that are active in sports, but they have other interests and hobbies that they share with me, and we don’t do much in the way of sports.
Not having enough talent to make it in sports is nowhere near having no talent at all, but being forced to participate in it. What are you bad at? I mean, really, really bad? What makes you SICK when you do it?
I remember the time my gym teacher encountered me in an art class, when we were making clay models. She was subbing for the sick art teacher. This gym teacher and I had always been at odds with each other…but she had an interest in art as well as in gym. And she learned that once I was out of gym class, and working on something that I enjoyed and was good at, I wasn’t nearly the little brat that she thought I was.
And sports does usually require some exercise, but exercising can be completely unrelated to sports. I get on my cardio cruiser for half an hour or more each day, and that’s exercise, but it’s certainly not a sport. It’s not fun in any way, but it’s something that I need to do, like I need to do housework. The consequences of NOT doing it are worse than doing it, so I do it. But I hate it.
Oh, and I looked up Babe Ruth. Not only did he smoke cigars and cigarettes and dipped, but he was a spokesman for some brands of cigars and cigarettes.