Disinterest in sports among academics and the highly educated is, in my experience, far from passive. I’ve heard people almost compete to explain the depth of their ignorance in sports — one doesn’t even know the rules, one doesn’t own a television, one doesn’t know the first thing about the game.
via Cultivated Disinterest in Professional Sports | copyrighteous.
I’ve been guilty of this.
Not me! I love soccer and I used to love watching Football. (cannot do so now ethically–and it just doesn’t hold my interest anymore..).
I think I’m even more academic than you.. 😛 🙂
I liked *playing* soccer. And I still like badminton. And I wish I could have this sports thing in common with other people… I just feel like I was just born without the gene that makes *watching someone else do it* fun for me.
Yeah.. I really only appreciate watching Soccer now–perhaps because I only do so rarely (world cup usually)–and I can appreciate the strategy and skills being performed, just like I would watching really good actors in a movie. It’s a kind of “story” to me in that way.
Other sports don’t do it for me though in that regard.
Badminton is the bomb. I haven’t played it in probably 20 years–but I loved it..
I only like watching the sports that I play. I appreciate the players’ technique and the sophistication of the team’s tactics. The emotional investment in a given team is a free ride on the roller coaster, as it were. When they perform exceptionally, I enjoy the rush. When they don’t, it doesn’t bother me.