Sport as a getaway

Someone asked me the other day why I’m taking a sports journalism class abroad, and why I love sports so much to begin with.  I honestly had no answer at the time, so decided to reflect a little to truly understand why sport is so important to me.

As a little kid with parents going through a divorce, sport was introduced to me as a way to get away from reality.  At 7 years old, I didn't understand what was going on during football games, but I knew that it was a period of time where I didn't have to worry about which parent I was going to live with or how the current reality was going to affect my future lifestyle.  As I got older, I started understanding how each sport worked and began to develop an immense admiration for all sports, but football and hockey more than others. While they were my favorites, I started my personal athletic career by playing baseball and soccer.  It was pretty clear right from the get-go that I wasn't the next Barry Bonds...I was the guy that made everyone else on the field look like superstars.  I enjoyed soccer and continued to play 'competitively' (elementary school level) until 6th grade where I finally decided to give football a shot.

Still to this day I have no idea why I'm so enamored by the sport but it basically controls my life from August until the beginning of January.  In particular, I practically am married to Notre Dame football. That's (sadly) my main priority during football season and I have so many superstitions it’s disturbing.  As far as me playing goes, I played in middle school and freshman year of high school but got knee injuries basically every year of some significant magnitude, so my doctor told me to stop playing.  I switched to something with less contact (swimming) and had some success with that.  I got recruited to swim at Denison, swam for a year, and then had second thoughts about why I was swimming rather than playing football…so decided to join the football team in the spring of sophomore year.  My career lasted pretty long...I made it until the third week of fall camp and then realized that there was a reason my doctor told me not to play...so I am now a student coach instead of a player and it seems my collegiate athletic days are over. 

I guess the main reason I love being a part of a sports team so much is because of the 'brotherhood'.  There's something about getting your ass kicked in practice ten times a week that translates to lifetime bonds that can't be taken away.  Sports also has taught me self-discipline that I will carry through my life.  I may not be in a jersey, but I will always be around at least one sports team in one way or another. Along with being a student football coach, I also live with 5 swimmers and am the home meet announcer for the my college.  It's interesting having my two main groups of friends being swimmers and then football players, but the diversity between the two has taught me a lot about how different sports have drastically different environments.