Answering a Question

I often find myself faced with the question, “what is your favorite sport?” Or sometimes they ask, “what do you like better, football or basketball?” depending on the person asking. I will always tell the truth, but most times my answer just avoids the question. This is because I truly don’t know yet. I don’t know if I want to play a sport in college, and if I do, I don’t know what sport. So I have three definite answers to either of the questions. 1-I don’t know. 2- Whatever I am playing/ whatever is in season. 3- Ping-pong.

I don’t know. This is my answer if I just want to avoid the subject all together and start talking about something else. Its true that I’m not sure yet, so I’m not lying, but I’m also not answering any question. This is also my answer to people who I would rather not talk to, maybe because they annoy me or maybe because they are fairly dumb, because it is easy to understand and it is straight to the point. There are really no follow up questions that can be asked after this response, so that is also a plus.

Whatever I am playing/ whatever is in season. This answer I give to people who are serious and who deserve an answer. This is the closest to the truth, and most times needs an explanation. The sport that I am playing when this question is asked is most likely the sport that I am enjoying most. I like the sport I am playing because I am totally engulfed in it and I devote my time to it. Another reason why it is closest to the truth is that I like all sports that I play equally. No one sport (except ping-pong) is a clear favorite in my mind.

Ping-pong. This is the answer that is dealt if I feel like the person asking the question doesn’t really need a serious answer and I feel like joking around. But not joking here, ping-pong may actually be my favorite sport. It is amazingly fun, and I seem to be fairly good at it, which helps. I love to challenge someone in ping-pong and I have only found a couple of people who can beat me. But even if I don’t win, I love to play the sport, it just won’t take me anywhere in life.

Track Already

Track starts Monday, February 16th. Wow. That is my first reaction. If we had not have had consecutive days of unusually warm weather at the beginning of the month, there would still be a foot of snow on the ground. The last time I checked, it’s hard to run in the snow. But nonetheless, practice starts Monday.

I will not be attending this first practice, or the first couple of weeks of practice for that matter. This is because basketball is still going on. The state tournament for basketball gets over in mid-March, by then there have already been a couple of indoor track meets. I don’t like how sports overlap like this. Give me a week off at least before I have to commit to the everyday running of track. This same problem occurred during the fall. Football goes into November if a team makes it to the playoffs, but basketball practice starts in mid-November as well. I think that if my football team would have made it to the state semifinals and lost, I would have had the weekend off before basketball started. If we would have made it to the championship, I think I would have missed some basketball.

This is wrong. Sports have their own season and should not drag on, or start up early. Track is a spring sport, the last time I checked, February in Iowa is the farthest away from spring you can get. Also, overlapping of sports gives the athletes no breaks. Coaches are always saying how you need to be in good condition and how you need to be well rested and ready to go. But when I have no break between sports, I never get the chance to rest. It’s always full go. It’s everyday, with no exceptions. I don’t like how coaches expect players to instantly switch from one sport to the next. I feel that it takes at least a week for me to transition out of one sport, and into another. But I know that if I want to make it to state in track, I won’t be able to take a week off, I will have to start right away, just like always.

Football in January

These past weekends have been very busy for me. They have been full of basketball and homework. There is no time for a good movie, and that makes me mad. I have not had the chance to sit down and watch a movie since the beginning of the year, and I won’t get a chance to until February. This is because Friday and Saturday games every weekend leave little time for anything else. So I’m not going to write about basketball or school. I’ve had enough of those for now. I’m going to write about football.

Football is one of those sports that I get tired of watching after a while. It is exciting and fast paced, and can be very fun to watch if you are rooting for one team. But if you don’t care who wins the game, it can get down right boring. In recent years I have been intrigued by the playoffs because I like the Indianapolis Colts. They have gone far enough for me to watch football into late January, but not this year. This year they lost early, and my favorite team, Da Bears, didn’t even make it. So I was thinking that I would disregard football, and not even watch the Super Bowl, until the new season starts. I found that this was hard to do. I found myself sneaking away from what I was doing on Sunday afternoons to watch football. I would sneak away and watch two teams, the Baltimore Ravens and the Arizona Cardinals.

I watched the Ravens because I like Joe Flacco and I like the way they play defense. I know that sounds clichéd, but it’s true. I would rather watch a team make great plays defensively then watch a team make great plays offensively. It’s more exciting to see Ed Reed get an interception than see Hines Ward make a catch. But as they say, all good things must come to an end (I can’t believe I’m using this many clichés). I watched Joe Flacco’s inexperience catch up to him, and I saw the Ravens lose.

The Arizona Cardinals are still in it. They could possible win the Super Bowl. Amazingly enough, Kurt Warner is still playing. A hometown hero, it’s possible that he just lead a “hall of fame drive” to score the winning touchdown over the Eagles. That drive could have put a defining stamp on his jumbled career. He is a great quarterback, and he is leading a team the “Believes.” Its fun to watch the Cardinals play and I might actually watch the Super Bowl this year, because I now have a team to root for.

Sports Just Keep Dragging On

Football is my favorite sport right now. There is no doubt. Either playing or watching, it doesn’t matter, it is really fun and exciting. Having the ability to run around and hit people as hard as you possible can is not a chance you get everyday, unless, of course, you play football. But even if you don’t play football, it can still be enjoyable. Sitting on you r couch on a Saturday afternoon, what else do you watch other then college football? Even if you don’t care about either team playing, if it’s a close game, you have to stay around and watch it.

But just like any other sport, football drags on too long. 16 weeks of football, bowl games 3 weeks after the regular season is over, and the Super Bowl in February. If I played football for a living, I would just get tired of playing after a while. I think the high school season is just right. As of right now, at the beginning of the last week of the regular season, I’m thinking, “ok I’m starting to get tired of playing, but I can go for one more week.” Then comes sub-state and the playoffs, which rejuvenates everybody all over again because we all want to go out and prove that this season was not just a waste of time. Playing in the playoffs just gives you a good feeling because you can say you are better then over half the teams in the state. Winning in the playoffs gives and even better feeling, but I’m not going to go there until we actually do win.

Now I have been talking about football dragging on, but it is not even the worst. It is not even the second worst at dragging on. The worst is easily baseball, then comes basketball. Baseball is still going on right now on October 19. I thought baseball was a summer sport, but they start in the spring and play until the end of fall. I’m not interested in baseball, no matter if it’s the World Series or not, during week 9 of football. Maybe it has something to do with the ridiculously large number of 162 games played in the regular season. That’s just too much, I don’t care who you are.

Then basketball. I just saw a preseason game the other day, once again during week 9 of football. I thought basketball was supposed to be a winter sport. But they start in the fall and play into the spring, right during the time baseball starts. Its all so much, so many games played, so many practices, so many road trips. After a while, it just doesn’t seem like a game anymore.