How many times, how many hours, how much brain power, how many dollars have been lost to people way too concerned with amateur sport? We live in the internet age, the world of entertainment is at our fingertips and there are people willing to watch the athletic prowess of a 15 year old to whom they’re not even related. It’s like watching sports back when it was only white people playing.
In the U.S. the Super Bowl just happened. It’s considered the pinnacle of human athleticism as it applies to wrecking the human body in imaginative ways whilst also wearing pads that delude the participants into thinking there is any measure of safety. And much like the discussion of how I would prefer to keep enjoying bad food, it made me wonder how anyone watching the Super Bowl could possibly enjoy amateur sports.
I live in a small town that is invested in high school football (of the North American variety), which is mind boggling to me because watching children’s sports is terrifying and terrible. What’s the appeal of watching teenagers who can’t even drive give each other concussions? Adults who know the risk, I get. Let adults with fully formed brains make the conscious decision to give themselves early onset Parkinson’s by launching their 300 lbs. of muscle head first at another wall of stupid and killing parts of their brain. But seeing children have those decisions made on their behalf is terrifying. Oh, and boring. You’re watching kids learn how to use their growing body. They aren’t at the height of their skills. Their voices crack when they call out plays.
It’s not like ye olden times when we were bereft of entertainment. Kids aren’t playing with a hoop and stick, no one is paying their nickel to see a an overweight person in a freak show, and we shouldn’t be watching teenagers play sports if they aren’t your children (and can we just arrest any creepy adult staring at the high school cheerleaders too long?). I barely understand people’s interest in college sports. Those are still amateurs. Minor League baseball isn’t on television, but the Little League Championships are. Those kids can’t even throw a curve ball (by rule, not by skill).
To me, sport is watching athletes excel through stretching the boundaries of human capabilities in competition. Children’s sports aren’t that. Children are stretching the capabilities of what isn’t even a fully formed human being. So why watch kids when the adult, with all their skills, all their experience and knowledge competing at the highest level, is available 24 hours through the magic of the internet? The adults are great even at their worst. Kids are terrible at sports because they don’t know how to be good yet. They are inadvertently terrible.
Is it to see the unbridled joy of a victorious child? To see the emotionally devastated tears of a child tasting the bitterness of defeat? Is it nostalgia? People reliving their glory days vicariously through those who still have potential where their own was left somewhere drowned in Budweiser decades earlier? Is everything adults enjoy just trapped in the rhythm of Bruce Springsteen’s “Glory Days!?!”
Strangely Naked 
I don’t watch sports, except hockey, but I’m fairly sure if kids didn’t play in high school/college… there wouldn’t be any good professional players. That’s just a guess though. My brother was in band, my high school boyfriend was in ROTC, so I used to go to the high school games all the time. Snoozefest, for sure.
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Well, of course there wouldn’t be professionals if they didn’t start as amateurs. I’m not suggesting halting high school/college sports, my argument is why would one watch the amateur version of a sport?
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I only did sports for fun, so never the organized variety. Playing in the street or someone’s yard was fun enough. As a geezer I have had to have both knees replaced. Guess I wore them out. The older I get the better I was.
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I never made a team, except once I got to run some something-yard dash at a track meet when I was in junior high. I came in last. I was not invited to attend again. Instead of a super bowl, we should have a souper bowl and try all sorts of soups. I want chicken noodle.
Love,
Janie
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I’m almost certain there’s a “Souper Bowl” that’s based in the competitive eating world.
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I was under the impression that the only ones who watch kids play sports are parents, grandparents, and any other relative who “has” to be there. Otherwise, yeah, why torture yourself? It’s like going to children’s concerts at school. It’s not good entertainment.
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M
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Me and sport don’t mix, I don’t play sport, I can’t be bothered to watch sport most sport I do not understand so as said not interested and can’t be bothered with it
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I dont get why little league is a thing, either. I used to like HS football…when i was in HS….
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It’s not QUITE the same thing, but along those lines there’s a tiny mountain town where we often go white water rafting, and there’s a certain spot where the locals all set up lawn chairs along the river, and they sit and wait all day for rafters to show up because a lot of times they fall out of the raft and hurt themselves on the rocks. That’s it. That’s their entertainment. Poor man’s schadenfreude. Maybe that explains the love of high school football.
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You’re right, Pickleope Von Pickleope. One high schooler I know moved on from football to wrestling. Talk about harsh. The coach has him gaining and then losing all sorts of weight (or vice versa) to see how that affects his ability to be pummeled without dying. It’s crazy.
Even though I hate the day, I hope you and yours had a very sweet Valentine’s Day.
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