What is it with sport? I don't get it? I was only ever average at sport. I am too un-coordinated to be good a ball games ... but I enjoy playing. I still play a reasonable game of table tennis and can beat all comers at the drop-in centre (I have discovered there that often the good players are ex-prisoners - plenty of practice.) I enjoyed playing cricket as a school boy, soccer, rugby when I was younger, and really enjoyed rowing. I coached school boy cricket and learned more about the game in those 7 years than the boys in the team did. I enjoy my running and quite enjoy secretly competing at static rowing at the gym. (There's this guy who rows beside me who keeps track on my meter reading as we row ... and of course this old twit tries to impress!) But ultimately sport is just a game!
We have "Frank" who plays pool at the drop-in. If you are playing him and are lining up a shot and accidentally tap the ball.. he hits the roof... "That's a double hit? It's an illegal shot!" He growls at people who get in his way, he's a sore loser, (I beat him consistently the other night... he was getting so agitated.) and he has been known to threaten people with his pool cue or throw his pool cue down in disgust and anger. It's only a game! For Pete's sake!
I was out at dinner with a group of people the other night. Someone had access to the latest rugby score, the local Highlanders team playing... somebody... I don't know who. As they looked like they were winning the game a woman at our table got more and more delighted. "They are winning!" she kept repeating with glee! When they won you would have thought she won the game personally. Or had won lotto even. What's with that? Its only a game! Get a life!
If you look at the news headlines on the yahoo site at any given time, a big proportion of them have to do with sport or sport stars. Big woop??
Listening to sport commentators, they speak so earnestly about selections, form and performances that you would think the future of the world depended on the sporting outcomes. Again I keep saying, "Get real... its only a game!" We pay our sports stars millions, and our carers of elderly or people with disabilities a pittance.
I really don't get it? Now they want to build a local stadium that is touted as an "all purpose" facility (small print.... "so long as you are playing rugby") for $200 million dollars! A past mayor has called it a "temple to rugby". That's the way I feel. I don't get this worship of sport! It is a way out of perspective in our world. Often some of our sports stars have lifestyles and attitudes that are so aggressive and destructive and we are reinforcing those in our young people by our approval of them!
I enjoy sport, but am appalled at the place it has in our society! Especially since most of us sit in our lounge chairs and watch, when we would be better off getting off our bums and playing something at our level ourselves.
Am I missing something? I don't get it?
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