Hee Hee! Go, Appalachian State

[filkertom]

Apparently, my "beloved" Michigan Wolverines made history this weekend.

I used to love sports; now I hate them. No, hate's way too strong. I don't care about the scores; they're only games. I care about the lack of safety, and the lack of perspective. I understand people's need to focus on sports teams, to even do so to the point of ignoring the many, many more important things going on in the Real World. Bluntly, the biggest effect sports have on my life at this point is whether or not I can get parking near my place on a game day.

I am so fucking amused at everyone's reactions to this.

What, if any, are yours?

Comments

[scruffycritter.livejournal.com]

I watch sports but with the exception of pro football, almost exclusively for the human interest stories. I think the first places we evolve as a society or species is in the games we play.

First came Jackie Robinson. #42 before Douglas Adams was even born.

Then in 1987 asked Doug Williams at Media day, "How long have you been a black Quarterback?". No, I am no making this up.

And conversely, 15 years later, nobody informing Rush Limbaugh that everyone besides him new black QB's could succeed at the pro level and him embarrassing himself off of ESPN.

Heck, your man Keith Olbermann got famous on ESPN.

This week as been watching a USA Basketball program recover its work ethic in Fiba America.

I learn what motivates successes (Montana, Favre [look what he did the day after his dad died]), and failures (Desmond Howard, Tony Mandarich).

Its a level of visibility on people doing their jobs and there is much to learn from it.

Seriously Tom. Google for "Gregg Easterbrook, Tuesday Morning Quarterback". He's a brookings scholar with a sports column but he deviates to politics, reader-mail (all in haiqu) and Science Fiction and tell me it's not some of the most entertaining and insightful stuff you've read in years. Just what he said about Michael Vick gave me a ton of pause.

[janetmiles.livejournal.com]

I think my reaction was best summed up as "Hah!"

[shadowcat48li.livejournal.com]

the division 1-AA folks have every right to be proud of this, division 1-AA has a real playoff system and a championship, instead of this BCS sillyness. instead of this way overrated and way overhyped BCS, which doesnt prove a thing beyond who won the polls, and then played to win, but in 1-AA you have to earn your way there.

the Big Ten has been overrated for decades, and Notre Dame is even worse as far as overrated.

its high time the 1-AA schools get the recognition they deserve, and the BCS teams.... waaaaaaah

sorry to rant Tom, its just I am sick and tired of the excuses for why there isnt a true national champion in Division 1A football.

[drzarron.livejournal.com]

I will admit to being a Michigan football fan.

And my reaction was "WTF?!?"

[archiver-tim.livejournal.com]

My reaction is the reminder to myself that I need a UofM schedule, so I can be aware of big bunches of traffic Saturday's

[starcat-jewel.livejournal.com]

I live in Texas, where football is the state religion -- the cradle of out-of-control athletes who are heroes on the football field and criminals in the rest of their lives, but who will never be convicted no matter what they do. What do you think I'm thinking?

[chaosdancer.livejournal.com]

I'm in Berea, Kentucky now minoring in Appalachian Studies, learning all about the region and the tragedies that have happened here, and my reaction was "woooooot!" And I'm not at all a football fan, never will be. It's just time those kids got some recognition because unless one happens by an accident of birth to be wealthy down here, they have a hard row to hoe. Drug abuse is still rampant, because people don't see much of a future and the present oftentimes really sucks. I'm glad they have a flag to rally around. :)

[redaxe.livejournal.com]

I don't care what the other folks say. Football season doesn't start until after the World Series is over...by which time it's basketball season. (Except in years when the soi-diant NY Giants aren't crippled by injuries or suckage. Even mediocre will do, for watching purposes.)

I admit to being amused by the debate on ESPN Radio last night as to whether the ultimate SportsCenter of the night ought to have led with the football or the no-hitter by Boston Red Sox rookie Craig Buchholz. I wish they could have put as much energy into debating something substantive.

As to the game itself, I'm both pleased to see the result. And unsurprised; "on any given day" [the worst team in the league can beat the best]. (Can't quite quote exactly from memory, and can't find the actual original. I'm sure someone here will deliver.)

[tigertoy.livejournal.com]

No sports story pleases me more than seeing a professional sports team polluting an otherwise respectable major university seriously embarrassed.

[ldwheeler.livejournal.com]

Like anything else, it's a matter of perspective, as you put it. If someone thinks the outcome of a game played by other people is something Truly Important -- to the point of obscuring real-life issues/problems and of relegating the actual people in one's life to second place -- then they've lost perspective. On the other hand, if one enjoys sports on the same level as anything else one enjoys, without it becoming an All-Consuming Passion, there's little harm that I see.

I enjoy watching Red Sox baseball, the same way I enjoy reading Harry Turtledove or Fables, the same way I enjoy, say, filk. (Actually, I enjoy filk more these days, since I'm a participant rather than just a spectator.) I'm outside the Boston market, and I don't spend money on sat-TV or on MLB.com in order to watch the whole season -- just the ones that make it on the ESPN family (and on YES when they play the Yanks) is enough for me. Baseball as a whole I find kind of a relaxing, decompressing game to watch.

Aside from that, my interest in sports ranges from minor interest to nil. I'll watch maybe one or two football games a year. I'll watch a bit of a hockey game just because I like the visual flow of movement on the ice. I can only really get interested in basketball if I see a game live, and I haven't done that for nearly 20 years -- with basketball, my interest is inversely proportional to the level of professionalism; I like high-school basketball but the pro level bores me. (The rampant egos and occasional thuggery don't help.) And golf? No. I do enjoy watching the Olympics, though it's not necessarily the competition so much as the nature of the event that interests me.

Any rate, cliche corner: To each his own. But I'm agreed that if Other People's Games become one's all-consuming passion, something's mighty wrong.

[peteralway.livejournal.com]

I think it's because the Appalachians have the dulcimers on their side.

I've never had much patience for sports--it was the athletes who humiliated me as a kid, so it doesn't bother me to see one side of a sporting match humiliated, except that it means it'll go to the heads of the athletes on the other side.

Bah, humbug on the whole thing. I'm still irritated that two years as a University of Michigan student managed to infuse an irrational sense in my head that a perfectly fine institution of higher learning, Ohio State University, was somehow intrinsically evil.

Let's all go make music and rocketships instead.

[katster.livejournal.com]

I love college football. I love the bands, the atmosphere, the packed stadium, the cheers, the fight songs...there's just something special about Saturday afternoons and cheering the boys who represent your alma mater onto victory.

And I love the fact that any given Saturday, magic can happen. A few years back, my sister's alma mater (UC Davis) was playing my school's arch rival (Stanford). UCD was transitioning into I-AA from Division II, and were technically not a I-AA school yet despite playing a I-AA schedule. There was no TV of the game -- Jill and I had to follow the Yahoo ticker to keep track of what was going on. But the screaming that happened when UC Davis did the impossible and took down Stanford? It's something I'll never forget. There's always power in the Davids taking down the Goliaths.

Which means that I am happy for the guys that represent Appalachian State. To go in and snatch victory from one of the best college football programs in the country, in said program's home stadium, is really the best of all possible worlds.

-kat

[palenoue.livejournal.com]

When I was in high school, for three years running our football team, boys basketball, and boys baseball were all in last place or near bottom, yet our girl's baseball, girls basketball, jazz band, chess team, hell, nearly every state wide team competition outside of the big three, we were first place, and many times first in the pacific northwest three state area. Track and field was middlin'.

Yet who got all of the pep rallies? Who got all the newspaper coverage? Who got inflated grades? Who were treated as heroes? Who got to ignore the rules (and even laws sometimes) when they were inconvenient?

This more than anything else convinced me sports was a waste of time. A close second was that every time I watch a sport, of any kind, I keep asking myself "Why am I watching instead of playing?"

[kestrels-nest.livejournal.com]

If every sportscast and report in the country suddenly vanished, I probably wouldn't notice. That's difficult, living with two rabid fans, but I still manage it. I do generally appreciate when an underdog wins and gets a lot of admiration for it, and get really ticked when a school district spends a fortune for a football program and then insists they don't have the money for "extras" like music and art. So I guess I care about the impact it can have, but about the events themselves? Could not possibly care less.

[admnaismith.livejournal.com]

You pretty much nailed my opinion already, just not enough so.

I was favorably influenced in my choice of graduate school by the fact that the football stadium was on the other side of the river from the rest of the school and the team couldn't play worth toofee. Unfortunately, they started winning about six years later, and now they have a huge fan base and people move here to be their fans, and just try driving anywhere midtown on game day. It would be a better college town if they'd stayed nonentities, but I do my best to ignore it.

It also bugs me that athletes get more money than scientists, and behave like pinatahead toejam cretins in public when they know they're role models for the children.

[shekkara.livejournal.com]

Being a Michigan fan I'm a bit bummed, but it's just a game. Life goes on. I bought student tickets my freshman year and enjoyed going to the games a lot (but not so much that I went after that first year), so I am glad to not be an incoming freshman stitting the stands for my first game in the Big House. I think that would have been a downer start to the year.

[catsittingstill.livejournal.com]

My attitude?

Um. Okay, so it sounds like someplace in Michigan has a team called the Wolverines, who won a game of some kind--maybe football?. Anyway, okay, whatever.

[gridlore.livejournal.com]

Not being a big fan of either team, my reaction was a "David beat Goliath, that's always fun." sort of thing.

I love sports, and will watch pretty much anything. The big news 'round these parts this weekend was Cal getting revenge on Tennessee for last season's smack-down.

People love sports, and get attached to teams as a sort of tribal affiliation. Just check out my reaction to my beloved Giants winning the 2002 NL pennant (http://gridlore.livejournal.com/136915.html) and blowing their chance to win the World Series in Game 6 (http://gridlore.livejournal.com/144715.html).

[gridlore.livejournal.com]

Michigan lost, which is the big story.

[bigbumble.livejournal.com]

I first heard about this through your LJ from a link on Peter's LJ. I find the home games very useful times to go shopping in downtown Ann Arbor. The normal crowds are gone and so the service is much better.

[jss]

In football? That's the one with the ice skates and the home runs, yes?

[gridlore.livejournal.com]

OK, I know you are trying to be funny, but imagine for a moment that I was being this dismissive of something important to you.

You don't follow sports. They aren't important to you. Cool. Fine.

But for some of us, they are important. I don't make fun of other peoples' interests and hobbies. Please show sports fans the same respect.

[hitchkitty.livejournal.com]

What I find deeply disturbing is that athletes are role models, period.

We're talking about people who get paid obscene amounts of money to play children's games.

[morpheus0013.livejournal.com]

I think I'm still the only person in North America who thinks sports should be completely separate from any type of institute of education, whether it's high school or college. You still want to have teams at those age levels? Fine. But make them community or city teams. Quit fucking linking them to schools.

I hate that.

[faxpaladin.livejournal.com]

My reaction to the game itself? Mild amusement.

My reaction to this reaction (http://mgoblog.blogspot.com/)? Extreme amusement.

[thatcrazycajun.livejournal.com]

That ain't nuthin'; our Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets just got back from thoroughly embarrassing Notre Dame on their own home turf, 33-3 in a record-breaking season opener.

Grin

[baronet.livejournal.com]

I found that funny. I usually say that I wouldn't know a baseball game if the fullback shoot me from the three point line. It is a way to convey that I know the terms, but the teams or that I know a little but am not a fan.

[dbcooper.livejournal.com]

To me, the whole point of competition should be that anyone can win on any given day.

I think it's funny, though, that the Freep writer likened Michigan State's loss to Appalachian State to losing to the Washington Generals. Y'see, they used to be known for losing to the Harlem Globetrotters.

They were, um, a basketball team.

Anyhow, I'm glad Appalachian State won! This is man-bites-dog stuff in sports terms. And yes, I think the reaction from Michigan State, sportswriters, and die-hard fans is hilarious.

This is why I still follow sports. ;)

[singlemaltsilk.livejournal.com]

Wolverines... umm, that's football, right?

Re: Grin

[jss]

Thank you.

Shooting from the three-point line? Is that with a rifle or a longbow?

[moquif.livejournal.com]

I never cared much for sports. Originally because I wasn't good at them and since I was in the high school marching band, I didn't like having to go to the games themselves. It was required. Missing a band performance cost you two letter grades. A to C to F. I didn't see too much of the favoritism, but I wasn't looking and probably wouldn't have recognized it when I saw it back then.

Today I have three big issues about professional sports.
1) Outrageous pay, and since I have cable I have to pay for part of it indirectly.
2) Favoritism. We've all seen it in the news so there's no need to repeat it.
3) It creates a false hope of a get rich quick scheme. Only a tiny fraction of one percent of the people who dream of playing professionally actually make it. The rest passed up their best chance to get an education and make something of themselves. Educational institutions that make their athletes learn a practical skill if sports doesn't pan out are the exception instead of the rule. Worse, this push to win at any cost leads to drug abuse and innocent people getting hurt or killed.

We shouldn't refer to professional sports players as athletes, we should call them sports entertainers like wrestlers on the WWE.

Re: Grin

[baronet.livejournal.com]

Which ever one it is with the birdies that they throw into the air. Golf, I think.

[poltr1]

Michigan lost. And in Ohio, there was Much Rejoicing. :)

I somewhat follow college football. I'm also aware that college sports bring two important things to an institution: name recognition and money.

What I'm having a hard time grokking is the notion that SF fans and sports fans are mutually exclusive sets. This expatriated Buffalonian still follows the Bills and Sabres when he can, because in Buffalo, that's the thing to do.

[filkertom.livejournal.com]

Okay, actually, here we go. You have given me a gateway to what might be a key question, which is going into the next thread.

[acelightning.livejournal.com]

[starcat-jewel.livejournal.com]

No, you're not. I think that would be a FINE idea.

[madmanotl.livejournal.com]

Personally, I was annoyed that the highlights from the game was so dominant on ESPN News that they did not show any of baseball when I was in my Dragon*con hotel room.

I could give my reasoning for why the events of Saturday happened but as someone who can overwhelm people in the mundane world with my sports knowledge, I know it would get mostly ignored here.

I have a former coworker who is a huge Wolverine fan and I wonder how he is doing.

Within the past 5 years of being in fandom, sports has become not as dominant in my life. Being a fan of performers such as yourself, I can just enjoy it without worrying about who wins. That is the main reason I now take the time, energy and money I used to spend to bowl, play golf or scrabble to enjoy life as I wish I could have done more of when all I cared about in the past was how well I performed.

[sciffy-circo.livejournal.com]

My brother used to spend all day ranting and raving about sports, sports, nothing but sports. The only other thing he ever talked about was reality TV and music fads. He kept saying I didn't know how to talk about anything other than Star Trek. Well, sure I can. "No, you can't, so let's talk about something EXCITING! Like SPORTS!" I don't thnk sports are exciting. I think they're boring. "That's because you're STUPID!" I think sports are stupid.

Here's my logic: Can you control the players? Can you control the outcome of the game? Are you the coach? Have you even played a single sport this year? On a team, or just at the playground, or gym for an hour or two? No, fantasy leagues don't count. You STILL don't control anything. Considering that you don't control a single aspect of the game, then SHUT UP about how they're playing it!

The same goes for anything on TV. You're not an actor, or writer, or producer, or station owner. You have no control, so shut up about the people who do.

I play sports when I feel like it. If I win, it's fun to brag about the scores. If I didn't win, I like to talk about the good plays that were made. I don't watch TV much at all, but I like to laugh at what's funny. Stupid doesn't really amuse me.

Oh, and if you are a sports player, or TV writer, or something like that, then you DO have control over what happens. So yes, you can complain then, but only about your own stuff. Let other people be "creative". Feel good about what they're doing. Because, after all, when they suck, they become a tremendous source of inspiration to all those who say "*I* can do better than THAT!!!"

[dr-zrfq.livejournal.com]

When I was in high school and college, football and basketball games were basically excuses for me and my fellow band geeks to play in the stands. (And on the field, pregame and halftime, for football games.) The football team was never better than .500; we didn't care, we still enjoyed ourselves out there... well, maybe not as much on freezing November nights (hot chocolate was our friend). And we played pep rallies for girls *and* boys teams. But it was the whole being in the band thing that made it all memorable for me.

[owlswater.livejournal.com]

Likewise, and yeah, that sounds about right. I feel bad for the players, though, given the tone of the media coverage and the scrutiny being brought to bear.

[purpleranger.livejournal.com]

I was amused. Obviously, Michigan thought they had scheduled a creampuff team as their season opener.

Oops.

[james-the-evil1.livejournal.com]

I think organized sports appeal to the worst in most people and encourage all sorts of negativity.
The "jock culture" is certainly a blight on society.
And if we eliminated the sports programs from public schools we'd certainly free up a ridiculous amount of money for, oh, I don't know...EDUCATION maybe?

Re: Grin

[ravenblack.livejournal.com]

The brilliant thing here is, I was quoting this conversation to someone as an amusing thing, and only after that (ie. about five minutes after I'd first read it) did I realise what was actually meant by shooting from the three point line.

Genuine failure to understand joke failure to understand sports terms! I win! (Though I cheated by being from a country where basketball is only marginally more popular than sumo wrestling.)