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What is SportsCenter?

10/30/01

On Sundays, I am now reffing football games in a recreational league here in San Francisco to make some money on weekends.  This past Sunday, my fellow ref Lou and I were talking about one of the girls on one of the teams we were watching that seemed to have football talent.

"You know," Lou began, "I have been looking for a girl like that for a long time.  I can't seem to find a girl that is both halfway attractive and can throw a tight spiral."

"Funny," I replied.  "I gave up on the possibility of that girl many years ago.  But, she must be out there, or we wouldn't be talking about that girl over there!"

And, it is true...all of the other guys on the sideline of this game seemed to be talking about how amazing it was that this girl was both hot AND capable on throwing the 15-yard out pattern.  It is amazing, when you sit a bunch of guys together in the same place, how common the thoughts can be regarding girls and sports, most notably girls and football.

It would be great to eventually be with that type of person, since you would figure that kind of girl to be a sports lover.  But, living in my own world of realism, I like to believe that even if people don't live and breathe sports like many of my male friends do, then women fall into two categories:  the sympathetic partner, and the nonchalant partner.  Two stories from this weekend bring the perspective more into focus.

1) The sympathetic partner

My friend Mike "Fear the Turtle!" Janzen is a hard-core sports fan.  Much like my former roommate Keith "Stats" Karem, he can often live or die by how his sports teams do.  This past weekend, Mike's college team, the Maryland Terrapins, played the Florida State Seminoles in a college football game.  Although the Terps played the 'Noles close through three quarters, the Terps ultimately lost 52-31 after giving up three touchdowns in the fourth quarter.

Now, if any of you know Mike, you know how he is after his teams lose in any sport--his entire evening's mood could be affected by how his team does that afternoon or evening.  So, as the team lost on Saturday afternoon, his girlfriend Renee knew what she had to do that night--sacrifice a night of partying to make sure that her man was going to be okay.  Because the sympathetic partner knows how sports can affect another man, even if it may seem silly to base one's entire mood on how well his teams do on the athletic fields.  Sports may seem trivial to the casual observer, but the sympathetic partner understands how it really is and knows that periodically, a man's mood can be totally related to whether or not his team wins.  It could be pride, it could be pure hatred of his team's opponent...hell, it could be a $500 bet that man has placed on his team to win.  But, through thick and thin, the sympathetic partner is there for him.

And, it doesn't even cover watching sports on TV; it could be coming out on a Saturday morning to watch their boyfriend play in a (relatively) meaningless flag football game.  I think most females would be surprised at how much this means to the average joe.

My friend Kellie Foy related this story to me on Saturday and I totally understood what she was talking about.  When she was done, all I could do was nod my head.  "That Renee, she is a good woman," I told Kellie.  "Heart of gold, that's what that girl has."

2) The nonchalant partner

My friend Steve was telling me today that he flipped on SportsCenter this past weekend while the girl that he is dating was over at his place.  She uttered the three words that any sports-loving male never wants to hear come out of a woman's mouth:

"What is SportsCenter?"

Suddenly, Steve did the triple take as he looked over at the girl with a look of stunned horror.  "What do I say to this girl?" he said to himself.  "I love sports...and, this girl has never heard of the show that is the female equivalent of 'Friends'?  Oh my God!"  Calmly, Steve explained to her what SportsCenter was, but it wasn't easy.  (SportsCenter, by the way, is the hourly sports program that airs on ESPN about ten times a day.  It is where most people that have cable get their sports news.)

Now, while Steve may have explained to the girl what SportsCenter was, it is the fact that the girl seemed to only half-heartedly listen to the show's description that is the alarming problem.  You see, the nonchalant partner could really give a rat's ass about the male's sports interests, because she thinks that loving sports is like loving a pet rock--it is just about the dumbest thing on the planet.  It is amazing to me how many stories my guy friends have told me about girls they have dated that didn't like sports, and the ratio of how many of these relationships have not worked out; it is almost 1:1.

Steve says he is okay now, despite the head jerking activity that took place over the weekend.  We'll see if this one lasts, but for me, I wake up every day hoping to meet that special someone that can throw the tight spiral.  That way, I don't have to mess around with wondering if a girl will be a sympathetic or a nonchalant!

 

justin@bellviewmovies.com