Yes, I remember being benched. Those were not happy memories.
Exercising is good for you. But why turn it into a competition? Reading is good for you but you don’t see ten people sitting around a table racing to see who can read a book the fastest.
And watching sports is watching other people compete in their exercising. Which can be worth watching if it’s women’s beach volleyball but the interest drops off rapidly from there.
In contrast with a lot of people who said they weren’t very athletic, or had some kind of problem related to exercise, I am athletic and was among the most fit kids in my PE classes. I grew up in the country and did stuff like riding horses, hunting, climbing trees, doing archery and shooting, hiking and camping. Later, we moved to the city. I did gymnastics for a solid 3 years, with another 2 of irregular practice. I often went ice skating and roller skating with my family. I was on the swimming and diving teams in high school. I would have done track, but the season overlapped with swimming. I’ve done various martial arts from the age of 16 to the present. I competed in diving again in college, picked up rock climbing, and did a little surfing then too.
Notice, though, that none of these activities are team sports. I detest team sports. It isn’t because I’m not good at them, it’s because I have never, ever cared about them. Considering my athletic ability, I’ve been able to pick up the basics of just about any physical activity in a session or two of intro and practice (I learned how to ski with about 15 minutes of actual instruction, and managed to go down an intermediate slope without falling by the end of the day) but I couldn’t give less of a shit about 100% of sports involving a ball and teams. I love watching most Olympic events. Watching people who are trained to the peak of perfection at a set of skills is very interesting. But team sports are tedious.
The only things I’ve ever seen in team sports that looks useful are the coordination and cooperation aspects of what is basically mock warfare. And I’d rather just drop the mock part. Fuck throwing a ball around. Let’s get a bunch of guys in armor with blunted swords and have a nice brawl. Not surprisingly, if I’d had any money for the armor, the stomach for the politics, and was able to get over my aversion to diluting the real fight techniques I know to fit within the rules, I’d probably have been a serious SCA geek. I liked the hell out of paintball too. So it’s not even that I’m against doing things as a group, I just don’t see any value in any conventional team sports. At all.
Sport does not equal athletics. Sport does not equal fitness.
Case in point; I got out of shape over the course of 3 years following an accident and ended up having to lose over 30 lbs. and build my strength and conditioning back up from appallingly low levels for me. In the course of that, I became a fitness nerd. I’ve ended up working so damn much over the last few years that I haven’t had time for the activities I like to do, so I’ve been doing general fitness conditioning (lifting heavy shit, running, calisthenics, some gymnastics skill work) since that time. I’m probably in better shape in some ways than when I was a high school athlete, and on the few occasions when I do have time to go hiking, rock climbing, surfing, etc. I’m able to go all-out and have a good time doing it without feeling like I’m going to die the next day.
I highly doubt 90% of the “weekend warrior” types who watch all those team sports would be able to match, much less beat me at most physical activities right now. People who are really into sports probably should spend more time playing and less time watching. Even then, they still have to get a bunch of friends or opponents together to do it.
I, on the other hand, can get a workout by walking out my front door and finding something interesting to do, even if it’s as low-key as running to the park and doing pull ups on the swing set and handstand push ups on the grass.
I totally agree with Lynn Bodoni on this: EXERCISE should be promoted, not sports.
What? Sports receive plenty of attention in most high schools. You mean to say that if you walk into a high school in the US and check out the trophies displayed, they’ll only be for the debate team, and none will be for football/softball/soccer/track & field victories? I don’t know about you, but in most schools I’ve seen the sports trophies get the biggest, proudest display.
My hometown newspaper (in New Hampshire) has an entire section devoted to high school sports. They cover, in loving detail, the stories of basketball games between local high schools. They give no such breathless coverage to the chess team.
Not only is it absurd to think that “promoting sports means everyone will be healthier!”, the opposite is probably true for those who are not gifted athletes. I suspect I’m like many people at the SDMB - as a kid, I was lousy at team sports and I remember it as a humiliating experience. As a consequence, I spent years of adulthood completely uninterested in taking up any athletic activities - because, like you, I confused “sports” and “exercise.” (Thankfully, I took long walks every day so I doubt I hurt my health much.)
Only when I got older did I wise up and realize that putting on running shoes and going for a daily jog and/or lifting weights was not going to recreate the horror that was junior high gym class. Now, I love to stay fit. But I still want nothing to do with sports.
Sports in school taught me to hate exercise. For a long time, I thought that because sports and exercise were always intertwined, that I must hate exercise because I hate sports.
Of course, it turns out that this isn’t true at all, and that exercise can be quite fun in the form of hiking, or casual bicycling, or whatever. It took me a while to discover this, though.
Maybe sports work well for some people, but definitely not all. And the odds are good that the people that most need exercise–the obese, the undermuscled, etc.–are also the ones for which promoting sports above other types of exercise works the least well.
Moved from IMHO to Game Room.
I can’t see hating sports. I can see having little-to-no interest in them.
Husband: How can you be so affected by the things that happen to soap opera charcters. It doesn’t affect your life.
Wife: Same way you are affected by some person you don’t know hitting a home run and winning the game.
I wonder why I don’t like sports. As a kid I was crazy active. Never walked when I could run, rode my bike everywhere. Because I had cheap close access to a pool I taught myself to swim. I must have been very coordinated because of all the insane climbing (trees, rocks, houses) I did. I must have been able to catch and throw a ball because I taught myself to juggle.
But sports were a mystery to me. I started a thread not too long ago asking if people were taught the rules of sports or just picked them up. Turns out most people just picked them up. Not me. I was mystified about what to do and I hated learning rules by having classmates yell at me “Hands!” “Traveling!” What?
I hated all the standing around you did in sports in gym class, waiting for the ball to come to you or for it to be your turn. Yawn.
Like lots of other posters, I hated the competition. If somebody wins, somebody loses. Even if I was the one winning, I hated that it was at somebody else’s expense.
I think it comes down to a personality difference. I’m an introvert. My social skills are fine, I converse easily, I’m friendly, but being around large groups of people exhausts me. Having to coordinate with a team of people is the opposite of fun for me.
I’m active, love to exercise and play outside, but no sports please.
:dubious:
My comic book collection is in storage right next to my hockey cards. 
You had enough talent to be on a college team, which is a few orders of magnitude more than a lot of people have. Your idea of a negative experience in sports is not winning the championship. Thus you are totally talking out your ass when talking about lack of natural athletic talent. Come back and talk to us when you’re clumsy enough to fall out a chair and your primary experience with sports is people shoving you and calling you names because you struck out and lost the game.
What the hell schools did you go to? We had sports shoved down our throats all the goddamn time. Kickball, baseball, volleyball, basketball, football, dodgeball, track–that was all we ever did in PE from the second grade on. There were school sponsored teams for baseball, softball, football, basketball, and track from the third grade on, with huge trophy cases and big fancy banquets at the end of the year. There were pep rallies and if any sports team made the state tournament, they canceled school. If they promoted sports any more, there wouldn’t have been time for actual school.
Of course you like sports–you were good at them so your experiences were mostly positive. I liked the academic side of school for the same reason–my idea of a negative experience is not realizing there was a back side to a worksheet and getting fussed at for not having it done. But I have enough sense and empathy to realize that other people who weren’t good at academics had some really bad experiences–getting bad grades, being called stupid, having to stay in at recess to finish work, being embarrassed by being pulled out for special ed. It would never occur to me to ask why such people don’t like reading old novels and playing Trivial Pursuit, ya know?
I played softball from ages 5 to 16, summer soccer for 2 years and basketball in middle school. I loved gym class from elementary to high school. I was (and am) obese that entire time. I had to buy special pants for softball and special shorts for gym because I didn’t fit in anything available. I was in marching band for 5 years too.
Being active in sports at that time did nothing - NOTHING - to stop my obesity. Unless maybe I was going to be 500# instead of 300#
In college I played broomball and after college I was in a bowling league, and got a black belt in Kenpo. Still obese, and by that time a smoker too!
I don’t play any team sports now but that’s because age and obesity bring down a team. I still go to the gym 3 days a week and walk every night. Thanks to sports? Maybe. But I still say sports does not cure obesity. You either have the drive to play or you don’t.
I’m positive that not all of the folks on this board who hated PE are overweight. And I’m positive there are more like me who ARE overweight and love(d) sports and PE!
And if you don’t think sports are important to schools or that school sports are important to communities, come check out the new $7mm stadium complex my local district just built. Of course, we can’t pass an education levy to save our lives now, but we do have some pretty fantastic facilities. Also ask kids how much they pay to play their sports now.
I’m a comic book person, fat, and a geek, but school was eleven years ago, and I got over it roughly ten and a half years ago, and hold no grudges towards jocks, preps, or cool kids. I’m constantly amazed at how so many people hold onto grievances like this.
I was friends with some ‘jocks’ in school and as an adult many of the people I’m closest to are hugely into watching and playing sports. That’s great; it’s just not something we share. They want to watch a game while I’m around, I read my book. I’m very happy they enjoy their time golfing, or playing hockey with their league. Mostly though adults who still manage to play sports don’t do it for exercise (although it is decent exercise), they do it for fun. They get their regular exercise the same way I do, by running, riding a bike, swimming, lifting weights, and doing yoga.
I actually played a lot of sports in school despite being a bookish nerd. I wasn’t much happy when PE class forced me to play with people I hated and who hated me back, but I loved playing basketball with buddies after school. Even now, during family reunions, if someone organizes a softball game I’ll participate.
I like playing sports. Watching them is the dullest shit man has ever devised. I want to participate, thanks.
These days, however, on a day to day basis I get the stuff one gets from sports from other sources.
- Exercise - much happier walking and exercising on my own time at my own pace.
- Strategy/tactics/teamwork - this is mental, not physical, and I satisfy this through online gaming. Running around with a rocket launcher is a lot more fun than being a linebacker, too.
- Socializing - part of the appeal of sports back in high school was being able to goof off with buddies. That, too, is easy to do online or at my own pace on my own time in person.
On Saturday I’ve got plans to hang out with a friendly bunch of people and we’ll probably end up playing fast-paced card or board games. That fills 2 and 3 just as well as any sport does.
Why did this get moved to the Game Room? By definition, everyone who reads The Game Room forum likes sports and games, and you won’t get any answers from those of us who hate sports.
Update: Well, I suppose you’ll get the sub-set who like video games, and hate sports.
Playing: Love them in all forms, from soccer to darts to badminton to slug bug.
Watching: I sometimes enjoy the Olympics and World Cup for the international spectacle and the opportunity (for the Olympics) to see rarely televised sports at a high level. Other sports watching, such as baseball, football, collegiate sports, racing, I have zero interest in watching. Also, following team progress, news, statistics isn’t something I’m interested in at all.
I love playing and watching sports, almost all of them. Not so interested in the Olympics, especially the subjective events like gymnastics.
For me exercise for its own sake is boring, I can run and play basketball or football for hours at a time, but more than 15 min of jogging or yoga makes me crazy.
I respect those who don’t enjoy sports and don’t give them a hard time. More often than not I am the one insulted as being a mindless sheep for liking sports at all.
OP reminds me of this but in reverse: http://www.reoiv.com/images/random/no%20like.jpg
I’d say most middle aged people who exercise. I don’t have time for sports - which takes organized time commitments. I have time to throw on shoes and go for a run or a walk. I have time to throw an exercise DVD into the player and do squats. I have time to do 50 situps before bed.
As you get older, your opportunities to participate in sports will start to decrease - for a number of reasons. There are less basketball teams for 50 year old guys and you can’t keep up with the 24 year olds. Your job and family will take priority over the softball team - which won’t necessarily exist as an athletic activity for most people, it becomes an excuse to sit on the bench and drink beer. You’ll find getting a whole team of guys together is hard - but you can get maybe a tennis partner, or someone to golf. (I used to golf, haven’t really with the kids. Its a long day when you have kids).
The people I know in the 30s and 40s and beyond who play team sports (I used to know a guy who was on a nationally ranked Senior baseball team in his 50s - they traveled all over the country) are REALLY committed to making the time to play them. Its a priority for them.
And this happens with ANY group activity, not just sports. It’s hard to make a commitment to show up every Tuesday evening for six hours for Dungeons & Dragons when you have a kid, for instance. The kid might get sick, or have an “emergency” assignment due on Wednesday (meaning s/he was assigned this project last month, but forgot to tell you about it until yesterday), or has his/her own sports game, or music recital, or whatever happening on Tuesday. And if it’s a choice between what your kid needs, and a game night, most good parents are going to support their kids, no matter how much they love the game or sport.