Maybe being a sports fan is just a habit. Not a need, an addiction, or even a desire – just a habit.
For the last ten years I have attended, watched, or listened to most every Cal football and basketball game that has been played. That's a lot of games - about 12 football games and 30 basketball games every year.
During that time I essentially planned my whole life around the Cal schedule. Social events couldn’t conflict. Out-of-town guests could only visit during road weekends (unless they wanted to attend the games with me). Vacations & business trips had to be planned around the games. Hotels were selected based on their cable package (would they show the game?). Even the birth of our children couldn’t get in the way – our oldest daughter was only about 7 weeks old for her first football game. (She brought us good luck, by the way – that game was Cal’s historic win over USC during Tedford’s 2nd year.)
And however excessive that may sound, at the time it seemed perfectly reasonable to me.
But now that I’ve pulled the plug, I look back with a great deal of bewilderment. It just doesn’t make sense. Even accounting for the thrills of the great wins (the aforementioned USC game, this year’s Tennessee game, etc.) it’s hard for me to understand what I was thinking.
So I’m wondering if it was just a habit. I’m no expert on habitual behavior, but I believe they happen unconsciously. A habitual nail biter doesn’t realize they’re doing it. They just do it. Maybe I got so used to following the Bears that it never occurred to me that I was doing anything unusual or unreasonable.
It’s hard to imagine I could be so mindless about something so pervasive in my life, but it might actually be true.
I’m about a month into my no-sports experiment it’s been remarkably easy since day 1. I’ve been tempted a few times and I’ve had a couple of minor lapses, but that’s nothing in the grand scheme.
If the Bears were a true addiction, which I thought was a possibility, I don’t think the separation would be so easy. I know they’re having a disappointing season, but in years past that would be all the more reason to root for them. Hope springs eternal for a true fan, and this particular team does have a lot of talent.
Anyway, I don’t think I can answer the question right here or now, but it does seem worth asking. If anyone has any thoughts on the topic feel free to weigh in.
Cheers,
Chris
Thursday, January 31, 2008
Monday, January 21, 2008
Second Hand Sports
First off, thanks to everyone who gave me their thoughts about taking Syd to a women's basketball game. Although many of you said it would be okay I've decided to go with the hardliners - I'm not going to take her. Instead, I'll find another activity featuring M&Ms and popcorn that we can do together.
In other news, it's been exactly three weeks since I started this experiment and a few clear patterns have started to emerge.
The most obvious one, and the topic for this post, is that I am definitely not living in a sports blackout. On the contrary, sports is still all around me. Many of my friends & family are big sports fans so it comes up regularly when we hang out or talk on the phone. And at the office it is also a regular topic of conversation. In fact, at work it is somewhat of a necessity since I try to avoid discussing anything edgy (e.g., politics) with most of my colleagues.
And all my regular news sites (SFGate.com, WSJ.com, NYTimes.com) have sports headlines on their homepage, so without ever clicking a link I can get caught up on the basics. My commute is another wellspring of information. In the mornings I take the Casual Carpool to work so I hear different radio stations on different days. Today John Madden was telling me his views about whether Brett Favre would retire (he might). On the way home I take BART, and I occasionally see people reading the local sports page so I'm able to catch the headlines. That's how I learned that the Bears had recently dropped a double-overtime home game to perennial PacTen bottom dwellers Arizona State.
And that's not the worst of it. Sunday we hosted a small going-away party for some old friends, and one of them is a big Packers fan so we had the game on in our living all afternoon! Then Monday I was at the Tilden Park club house after a round of golf, and of course SportsCenter was on every TV in the dining room.
So what am I to make of all this second hand sports exposure? Is the whole experiment a failure after just three weeks?
I say no. On the contrary, I think it's going much better than expected.
I have faithfully adhered to the rules stipulated in my first post and that is the point. Excluding my lapses during the first week, when I read two articles about the Bears, I have not read more than a headline about any sporting event that has occurred in January. And until the Packers game on Sunday, I had not spent one minute of any day this year watching sports. (As an aside, I never sat down to watch it in earnest. I caught a few plays here and there, especially the critical field goals at the end, but I was too busy hosting to focus on the game.)
In other words, I'm doing exactly what I set out to do and I still know most of what's happening in sports. The only difference is that I don't find out till after things already happen. It's the best of both worlds. I don't have to spend any of my valuable free time following sports, but I don't have to live in a vacuum, either.
And what I've noticed thus far is that I haven't missed much of anything. There hasn't been a major upset in any sporting event so far in 2008. And my beloved Bears are heading for yet another disappointing season, despite having more talent on the roster than any of us can remember. If they were having a good year this would all be a lot harder.
Cheers,
Chris
In other news, it's been exactly three weeks since I started this experiment and a few clear patterns have started to emerge.
The most obvious one, and the topic for this post, is that I am definitely not living in a sports blackout. On the contrary, sports is still all around me. Many of my friends & family are big sports fans so it comes up regularly when we hang out or talk on the phone. And at the office it is also a regular topic of conversation. In fact, at work it is somewhat of a necessity since I try to avoid discussing anything edgy (e.g., politics) with most of my colleagues.
And all my regular news sites (SFGate.com, WSJ.com, NYTimes.com) have sports headlines on their homepage, so without ever clicking a link I can get caught up on the basics. My commute is another wellspring of information. In the mornings I take the Casual Carpool to work so I hear different radio stations on different days. Today John Madden was telling me his views about whether Brett Favre would retire (he might). On the way home I take BART, and I occasionally see people reading the local sports page so I'm able to catch the headlines. That's how I learned that the Bears had recently dropped a double-overtime home game to perennial PacTen bottom dwellers Arizona State.
And that's not the worst of it. Sunday we hosted a small going-away party for some old friends, and one of them is a big Packers fan so we had the game on in our living all afternoon! Then Monday I was at the Tilden Park club house after a round of golf, and of course SportsCenter was on every TV in the dining room.
So what am I to make of all this second hand sports exposure? Is the whole experiment a failure after just three weeks?
I say no. On the contrary, I think it's going much better than expected.
I have faithfully adhered to the rules stipulated in my first post and that is the point. Excluding my lapses during the first week, when I read two articles about the Bears, I have not read more than a headline about any sporting event that has occurred in January. And until the Packers game on Sunday, I had not spent one minute of any day this year watching sports. (As an aside, I never sat down to watch it in earnest. I caught a few plays here and there, especially the critical field goals at the end, but I was too busy hosting to focus on the game.)
In other words, I'm doing exactly what I set out to do and I still know most of what's happening in sports. The only difference is that I don't find out till after things already happen. It's the best of both worlds. I don't have to spend any of my valuable free time following sports, but I don't have to live in a vacuum, either.
And what I've noticed thus far is that I haven't missed much of anything. There hasn't been a major upset in any sporting event so far in 2008. And my beloved Bears are heading for yet another disappointing season, despite having more talent on the roster than any of us can remember. If they were having a good year this would all be a lot harder.
Cheers,
Chris
Sunday, January 13, 2008
Pull Up the Roots
Greetings, everyone. And thanks for all your support and encouragement this week. I definitely appreciate it.
A few people also wrote to me expressing concerns about the motives for the project, which I suppose is reasonable. One friend put it this way: "I can only conclude you concluded you had a problem. Best of luck making change in 2008." Others feared that perhaps Cheryl had given me some sort of ultimatum, or at the very least that it was motivated by marital stress. (Somebody also joked that Cheryl must have threatened to withhold sex unless I gave up sports.)
I'm pleased to say that none of these are correct. If they were, I don't think I'd be keeping a public log of my progress.
The truth is that the initial motivation for the experiment was to write about it. Like many (most?) people I have always dreamed of becoming a writer, and over the past few years I've started numerous fiction projects. But invariably I've abandoned them, and always for the same reason - they lacked passion.
And then one night in December it hit me. Living without sports for a year and writing about the experience would definitely solve that problem. It would be like a literary version of "Cold Turkey" with some social commentary thrown in for good measure. The pain of my sports withdrawals would make for compelling drama, and my observations about a life without sports would add depth and substance.
So that was the original thinking. I ran the idea past Cheryl and she liked it right away. Then I bounced it off a few more people and the results were mixed but mostly positive. A couple of people suggested I blog it, and I obviously took that advice.
But now that I'm actually not watching sports and writing about the experience, I've had to think about my motives a lot more carefully. Otherwise there wouldn't be much to write about. And upon further reflection there are three primary reasons this seems like a very good idea to me (regardless of whether the writing project comes to fruition.)
Starting with the negative, I'd be lying if I didn't acknowledge a grain of truth to my friend's conclusion that I concluded that I had a problem. Just before Christmas I went to my in-laws' house for the holidays. I arrived two days after Cheryl and the kids so naturally we were all excited to see each other. But after about a half-hour of catching up, I excused myself to go watch a delayed Cal BB game. I proceeded to waste the next 90 minutes of my life watching uninspired, losing basketball when I should have been spending time with the family. After the game, I realized what a waste it was. And I thought about all the times I had done something similar - too many to count - and I decided it was time for a change.
But I didn't have to go cold turkey to solve that problem. Simply cutting back my sports viewing would have been enough to get things under control. In fact, I think that's what most sports fans do.
But there are some positive motivations, too, and they are the ones that are driving me to go cold turkey. Mostly, I'm excited about this upcoming year because it will be the first time in my life I've made a conscious effort to pursue other interests with the intensity I pursue sports. I've never much cared for non-sports TV, and likewise my leisure time Web surfing has typically been limited to ESPN.com, SFGate.com/Sports, and The Bear Insider. During work hours, of course I check news sites like WSJ.com and NYTimes.com, but when I'm unwinding at home those are nowhere on my radar. And now all of that has to change. In fact on Friday night I was a bit panicked because I realized I had absolutely no leisure time sites to surf. But on Saturday I regained my composure and remembered The Onion.com and Slate.com, both of which were quite amusing.
Finally, and perhaps most importantly, I wanted to challenge myself, to shake things up just for the sport of it (heh heh). My life has been a case-study in stability. I've never had a mailing address outside of California and I've lived in the Bay Area since 1987. I own a house that is about 1 mile from where I lived in college and around the block from my first apartment after college. I've had pretty much the same friends since graduating Berkeley, with a few key additions over the years. I've only worked for four companies in my entire professional career, and if things go well I'll stay with my current employer till I retire. And I'm married with kids. Things move slow in my world.
So what could I really do to shake things up? Quit my job? Sell my house? Find new friends? Leave my wife and kids? Not a chance - those are all the best things in my life. But I could give up the Bears and sports in general just to see what happened. I could remove a fundamental pillar of my identity and then live through the repercussions. Anything could happen, but it would be worth the risk. My biggest fear going in was that I would fall into a deep depression. And it still may happen. March Madness may take on a whole new, literal meaning for me. But I think it's the right thing to do regardless. As a working stiff/family man, it's easy to fall into a rut and just do what you've always done forever. Changing things here and there has to be a good idea.
Fortunately, so far so good. Until next time....
Cheers,
Chris
P.S. If anyone is still reading, I'd like some advice. Sydney has been asking me to take her to a basketball game, and I thought that maybe a women's game would be a good compromise. I haven't seen a women's game since college, so it's not something I'd normally do. And since it's a bonding activity for me & Syd, and it gives her a chance to see women playing sports at a high level, it seems like it wouldn't be breaking the spirit of my resolution. I'm curious to know what others think. (I changed the settings on the site so you can post comments anonymously.) Thanks again, Chris.
A few people also wrote to me expressing concerns about the motives for the project, which I suppose is reasonable. One friend put it this way: "I can only conclude you concluded you had a problem. Best of luck making change in 2008." Others feared that perhaps Cheryl had given me some sort of ultimatum, or at the very least that it was motivated by marital stress. (Somebody also joked that Cheryl must have threatened to withhold sex unless I gave up sports.)
I'm pleased to say that none of these are correct. If they were, I don't think I'd be keeping a public log of my progress.
The truth is that the initial motivation for the experiment was to write about it. Like many (most?) people I have always dreamed of becoming a writer, and over the past few years I've started numerous fiction projects. But invariably I've abandoned them, and always for the same reason - they lacked passion.
And then one night in December it hit me. Living without sports for a year and writing about the experience would definitely solve that problem. It would be like a literary version of "Cold Turkey" with some social commentary thrown in for good measure. The pain of my sports withdrawals would make for compelling drama, and my observations about a life without sports would add depth and substance.
So that was the original thinking. I ran the idea past Cheryl and she liked it right away. Then I bounced it off a few more people and the results were mixed but mostly positive. A couple of people suggested I blog it, and I obviously took that advice.
But now that I'm actually not watching sports and writing about the experience, I've had to think about my motives a lot more carefully. Otherwise there wouldn't be much to write about. And upon further reflection there are three primary reasons this seems like a very good idea to me (regardless of whether the writing project comes to fruition.)
Starting with the negative, I'd be lying if I didn't acknowledge a grain of truth to my friend's conclusion that I concluded that I had a problem. Just before Christmas I went to my in-laws' house for the holidays. I arrived two days after Cheryl and the kids so naturally we were all excited to see each other. But after about a half-hour of catching up, I excused myself to go watch a delayed Cal BB game. I proceeded to waste the next 90 minutes of my life watching uninspired, losing basketball when I should have been spending time with the family. After the game, I realized what a waste it was. And I thought about all the times I had done something similar - too many to count - and I decided it was time for a change.
But I didn't have to go cold turkey to solve that problem. Simply cutting back my sports viewing would have been enough to get things under control. In fact, I think that's what most sports fans do.
But there are some positive motivations, too, and they are the ones that are driving me to go cold turkey. Mostly, I'm excited about this upcoming year because it will be the first time in my life I've made a conscious effort to pursue other interests with the intensity I pursue sports. I've never much cared for non-sports TV, and likewise my leisure time Web surfing has typically been limited to ESPN.com, SFGate.com/Sports, and The Bear Insider. During work hours, of course I check news sites like WSJ.com and NYTimes.com, but when I'm unwinding at home those are nowhere on my radar. And now all of that has to change. In fact on Friday night I was a bit panicked because I realized I had absolutely no leisure time sites to surf. But on Saturday I regained my composure and remembered The Onion.com and Slate.com, both of which were quite amusing.
Finally, and perhaps most importantly, I wanted to challenge myself, to shake things up just for the sport of it (heh heh). My life has been a case-study in stability. I've never had a mailing address outside of California and I've lived in the Bay Area since 1987. I own a house that is about 1 mile from where I lived in college and around the block from my first apartment after college. I've had pretty much the same friends since graduating Berkeley, with a few key additions over the years. I've only worked for four companies in my entire professional career, and if things go well I'll stay with my current employer till I retire. And I'm married with kids. Things move slow in my world.
So what could I really do to shake things up? Quit my job? Sell my house? Find new friends? Leave my wife and kids? Not a chance - those are all the best things in my life. But I could give up the Bears and sports in general just to see what happened. I could remove a fundamental pillar of my identity and then live through the repercussions. Anything could happen, but it would be worth the risk. My biggest fear going in was that I would fall into a deep depression. And it still may happen. March Madness may take on a whole new, literal meaning for me. But I think it's the right thing to do regardless. As a working stiff/family man, it's easy to fall into a rut and just do what you've always done forever. Changing things here and there has to be a good idea.
Fortunately, so far so good. Until next time....
Cheers,
Chris
P.S. If anyone is still reading, I'd like some advice. Sydney has been asking me to take her to a basketball game, and I thought that maybe a women's game would be a good compromise. I haven't seen a women's game since college, so it's not something I'd normally do. And since it's a bonding activity for me & Syd, and it gives her a chance to see women playing sports at a high level, it seems like it wouldn't be breaking the spirit of my resolution. I'm curious to know what others think. (I changed the settings on the site so you can post comments anonymously.) Thanks again, Chris.
Tuesday, January 8, 2008
One down, fifty-one to go...
Greetings, friends & family.
As many of you already know, my 2008 New Year's Resolution was to stop following sports completely. Cold turkey for one year.
And since one of my motivations for this improbable experiment is to write about it, I have decided to maintain a regular blog that chronicles my progress. Hopefully I can keep it interesting for you all.
The ground rules of the resolution are pretty strict. Obviously, I'm not allowed to watch any live or televised sporting events. Nor am I allowed to watch Sportscenter or any other TV sports news program. The radio is off limits, too. And finally, I'm not allowed to surf any sports related web sites or read any sports magazines.
As you all know, these are major, major changes in lifestyle for me. Following sports is pretty much my favorite leisure activity; I try to fit it in anytime I can. And not surprisingly, it takes most of my free time. I would estimate that during 2007 (like most every other year of my life) I spent an average of 10 hours per week following sports. And during football season, when I was simultaneously managing my NFL fantasy team and religiously following the Bears, I'd say it was between 20 - 25 hours per week. Living without it will be a whole new reality for me.
So in the interest of maintaining a modicum of normalcy, I have decided it's okay to talk about sports with coworkers, friends, & family. And I have accepted (enthusiastically, I might add) that some sports-related information will reach me via passive channels that are beyond my control. For example, Saturday I was at the liquor store and the clerk behind the counter had an NFL playoff game on the radio. We chatted briefly about the game while my credit card was processing. (Cheryl will probably notice me taking more frequent trips to the liquor store during the next few months....)
Considering the magnitude of the change, I would have to say that overall my first week has been very successful. I resisted the temptation to watch any of the New Year's Day and BCS football games, including my favorite, the Rose Bowl, plus last night's BCS championship game, the entire first round of the NFL playoffs, and most importantly, two Cal basketball home games against #22 USC and #5 UCLA. And I did not watch any Sportscenter or visit any of my usual sports websites. I also got a new issue of ESPN Magazine delivered to my house that I have not opened (though I did see that Dwayne Wade is on the cover).
As expected, by far the biggest test of my willpower was skipping the two Cal basketball home games. I honestly cannot recall the last time I missed Cal vs. UCLA in Berkeley. I may have missed a Trojan game over the years, but Cal vs. UCLA is sacred. Over the years our games against the Bruins (both home and away) have provided me some of the most memorable rooting experiences of my entire life.
With that as my excuse, I have to confess that I already violated the rules of the resolution a little. I allowed myself to read the Chronicle's recap of both Cal basketball games this week. I knew the outcome of both games at the time, so I figured I could just quickly dash through the articles and it would be okay. But in retrospect I know I cheated, and hopefully I can avoid that in the future.
Still, during a fabulously sports-rich week that included two of my favorite sporting events of the entire year (Rose Bowl, Cal vs. UCLA) I spent a grand total of 10 minutes being a sportsfan. Last year I probably spent 20 hours of my free time following all these same events. So overall I'd say I'm off to a solid start. It's not perfect, but I still have another 51 weeks to work out the kinks.
Until next time,
Chris
As many of you already know, my 2008 New Year's Resolution was to stop following sports completely. Cold turkey for one year.
And since one of my motivations for this improbable experiment is to write about it, I have decided to maintain a regular blog that chronicles my progress. Hopefully I can keep it interesting for you all.
The ground rules of the resolution are pretty strict. Obviously, I'm not allowed to watch any live or televised sporting events. Nor am I allowed to watch Sportscenter or any other TV sports news program. The radio is off limits, too. And finally, I'm not allowed to surf any sports related web sites or read any sports magazines.
As you all know, these are major, major changes in lifestyle for me. Following sports is pretty much my favorite leisure activity; I try to fit it in anytime I can. And not surprisingly, it takes most of my free time. I would estimate that during 2007 (like most every other year of my life) I spent an average of 10 hours per week following sports. And during football season, when I was simultaneously managing my NFL fantasy team and religiously following the Bears, I'd say it was between 20 - 25 hours per week. Living without it will be a whole new reality for me.
So in the interest of maintaining a modicum of normalcy, I have decided it's okay to talk about sports with coworkers, friends, & family. And I have accepted (enthusiastically, I might add) that some sports-related information will reach me via passive channels that are beyond my control. For example, Saturday I was at the liquor store and the clerk behind the counter had an NFL playoff game on the radio. We chatted briefly about the game while my credit card was processing. (Cheryl will probably notice me taking more frequent trips to the liquor store during the next few months....)
Considering the magnitude of the change, I would have to say that overall my first week has been very successful. I resisted the temptation to watch any of the New Year's Day and BCS football games, including my favorite, the Rose Bowl, plus last night's BCS championship game, the entire first round of the NFL playoffs, and most importantly, two Cal basketball home games against #22 USC and #5 UCLA. And I did not watch any Sportscenter or visit any of my usual sports websites. I also got a new issue of ESPN Magazine delivered to my house that I have not opened (though I did see that Dwayne Wade is on the cover).
As expected, by far the biggest test of my willpower was skipping the two Cal basketball home games. I honestly cannot recall the last time I missed Cal vs. UCLA in Berkeley. I may have missed a Trojan game over the years, but Cal vs. UCLA is sacred. Over the years our games against the Bruins (both home and away) have provided me some of the most memorable rooting experiences of my entire life.
With that as my excuse, I have to confess that I already violated the rules of the resolution a little. I allowed myself to read the Chronicle's recap of both Cal basketball games this week. I knew the outcome of both games at the time, so I figured I could just quickly dash through the articles and it would be okay. But in retrospect I know I cheated, and hopefully I can avoid that in the future.
Still, during a fabulously sports-rich week that included two of my favorite sporting events of the entire year (Rose Bowl, Cal vs. UCLA) I spent a grand total of 10 minutes being a sportsfan. Last year I probably spent 20 hours of my free time following all these same events. So overall I'd say I'm off to a solid start. It's not perfect, but I still have another 51 weeks to work out the kinks.
Until next time,
Chris
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)