Calling all Sports Superfans: Would You Lie for Love?

"I love you, man!" "Aw! Come to papa!"

In the grand tradition of Sandra Bullock and Jesse James, Ross Gellar and his first wife Carol, and that governor from South Carolina who went MIA for two days to "hike the Appalacian trail", my marriage was based on a lie.  No, I'm not a neo-Nazi man whore, a closeted lesbian nor do I have a secret Argentinian mistress for whom I would abandon the government of an entire state to canoodle with but nevertheless my lie threatened to rock the very foundations of my early wedded bliss.

See, I did one of those terribly stereotypically girly things that I'm embarrassed to even call a girly stereotype much less cop to doing it.  I lied about liking to watch sports.

When my husband and I first met I was so charmed by his rakish good looks and blatant lack of propriety (he fell asleep on the front row of the very first day of class - and even drooled!) that I was determined to do anything to get him to keep hanging out with me.  This desire to be near to my crush led me to do several unfortunate things like inviting him to "take my dad's car and go get doughnuts at Smith's" (to which he replied witheringly, "What are you, 16?") and agreeing to sit on an ice block at the winter carnival until I won a free t-shirt (and hopefully his heart).  But the most egregious was my sudden interest in all things sports.


Up until I met him, I had never watched an entire game of any team sport.  Figure skating, sure. Swimming, yes (you've seen Michael Phelps, right?). Gymnastics, absolutely.  But no basketball, football, soccer, rugby, volleyball or even tennis match had ever washed over my bored retinas.  Having done everything I could to escape the horror of gym class in high school, I didn't even know the rules to any of those games much less who to scream for or what color to paint my face.  True story: in college I once went to a football game on a date.  I brought a 700-page novel to read.  I didn't even notice when he left me.  Another true story: in high school a friend's dad got me and a few girl friends first-tier seats to the final playoff game between the Bulls and the Jazz.  We left during half time because the cheerleaders sucked and we wanted Chinese food.  (My husband dies a little more every time I tell that story.)

But then love came into my life bringing not only mushy notes and roses but also sports.  Specifically, basketball.  My husband has always loved basketball.  College, pro, kiddie league - if it was there, he'd watch it (he's watching the NBA finals as I type this).  So I pretended to watch whatever he was watching so I could go to the sports parties with him and snuggle up in the stands with him and wear his Utah Jazz sweatshirt so I could smell him (this was back when the Jazz were good).

I know.  I want to smack myself too.  It's girls like me that give girls a bad name.  It's bad enough that I hate watching sports.  But to lie about it?

And then we got married and it all stopped.  Instead of the final four, I was glued to Felicity (ohmygoodness SHE CUT HER HAIR).  When he suggested an away game date night, I made plans to go away... to the Indigo Girls concert.  When he bought me my own school mascot t-shirt I wore it every day... to bed.  He felt betrayed.  He'd thought he'd found one of those cool girls that every guy dreams of but exist far less in reality than they do in Doritos commercials.  Instead he got Bill Walton, if Bill Walton narrated the Miss America pageant.

To this day I still feel bad about my trickery.  And this guilt has led to me to occasionally watch something sports related with him.  I have discovered that team sports are not as boring as I thought they were!  For instance, you have Venus Williams' flesh-toned undies and crazyawesomeinsane tennis costumes to keep you glued to tennis:

Hee!  She gets swack* too!!

And with moves like these, no wonder soccer is the number 1 sport in the world!

Any sport that has fans like these must have a good sense of humor:

And then there is my husband's beloved basketball:

Just awesome.

This is pretty much exactly how I play basketball.  

And this may be the best sports picture ever taken.  How could I not love this game??

Have you ever lied to impress a date?  Do you like watching team sports?  What do you think about Venus Williams' underwear - distracting and unsportsmanlike or fun?

*That would be Gym Buddy parlance for sweaty crack.  We're gross, I know.

Sports: Do You Play to Win?

Well that's a bummer.

The leaves changing color, the nip in the air, the never ending back-to-school nights with their ten-page supply lists are all signs of the season change, sure, but nothing announces the advent of fall in suburbia like the pitter-patter of little soccer cleats across a field. (That would be football for everyone outside the States. It was probably unnecessary to clarify that but I have one surprisingly dedicated reader in Singapore and I'll be rather disappointed if I ever lose them.)

Raise your hand if you played soccer as a kid. I imagine that includes everyone. Tying on your shin guards and wrestling those tube socks up over your knees is a right of passage for children everywhere. But so is something else: getting your butt kicked. In fact, if you were me, that was pretty much all soccer entailed. (And softball and basketball and volleyball and football. True story: I was the only girl on my high school Powder Puff team to get not a single second of playing time in a game.)

These days things have changed. With the advent of non-competitive leagues and a general aura of Everyone's a Winner, kids spend a lot less time losing than I did. Many have griped about this, saying that we are coddling our kids and it makes them weaker, unable to handle real world defeat when it smacks them across the face in adulthood. But I, for one, actually find it refreshing. My childhood spent sucking at every conceivable group sport left me with a lifelong hatred of group sports that I have only been able to overcome in my late twenties. I'll admit it: I still get jittery playing something as simple as a pick-up game of frisbee.

The difference in these viewpoints is how you see the purpose of sports. Despite having a very competitive nature, the main purpose of sports for me is to exercise and to have fun. For many other people, however, it is to win. This has played out in an interesting fashion in my kids.

This fall the husband and I decided to enroll our two eldest boys in the city soccer league, non-competitive division. I figured they'd get some fresh air and learn about teamwork. If things went really well they might even learn the rules of the game - a feat I never accomplished in all my time on the field. This is exactly what my five-year-old got. His team has no goalie and players routinely put themselves on the sidelines when they'd rather play with their dinosaurs than the other kids. Snack time is the highlight. They have lost every single game.

Compare that to my seven-year-old's team. Their coach and half their players are from the competitive league and apparently use the non-competitive league as a warm up for their season. They have assigned positions, complicated plays and drills that involve an amazing amount of coordination. Not only have they won every single game but my son came home this last time shouting, "We beat 'em 16 to 1! And that was only because Coach told us to let them get one in at the end!" Cue the sad violins for the opposing team.

As you would expect, this caused many tears from the five-year-old and hours of bragging from the seven-year-old (not that it takes much to induce either crying or bragging in our house these days). You'd think that this would be evidence to run the team in the latter manner. And yet, despite my older son's joy at winning - and I say this with great love - he's by far the worst player on his team. This has led his coach to say, within his hearing, "Only kick the ball to Andersen if he's the only person around and then stay right on it." You should have seen his big puppy eyes fill with tears when he asked me why no one would pass him the ball. He also only gets assigned to play one defensive position in the very back, where he never sees the ball much less touches it. The other parents whisper things like "state college" and "band scholarship" behind their hands and won't look me in the eyes.

Of course it all makes me very upset. Come on, that's what I do. The husband is more zen about the whole thing saying about both sons, "Eh, they're having fun. They're learning stuff." The tears that I see as heart-breaking he sees as character-building. It's not just our family that's divided on the group sports issue. When I posted on Facebook about how I'm not cut out to be a soccer mom (I believe I actually used the phrase "soccer sucks" 'cause I'm mature like that), I got an amazing array of responses - everything from total agreement to total disdain leading me to conclude that soccer, not Al Franken, is the great polarizing force in our generation.

So now I have to know your opinion! When you play sports, do you play to win? What is your philosophy about kids and sports? In the picture above, which guy is getting the worse end of the deal? Seriously, I've been looking at it for like 10 minutes and I still can't decide.

PS> Thank you so much to everyone who left me a comment on my Compulsive Pregnant Exerciser post - your kind comments, prayers and support got me through this weekend! I can't tell you all how much it means to me!!

Tennis Officials Call Serena Williams Ugly, Send Her to Back Courts

Quick, name this profession: long, slim, toned bodies poured into tight fitting - but adorable! - clothing and jumping around in front of a bevy of overeager photographers, magazine editors, and camera crews. Oh yeah, and there's a lot of "grunting" involved (oh, the scandal!).

Did you say modeling? Actually, it's tennis.

With East European beauties such as Maria Sharapova, Anna Kournikova and Elena Dementieva ruling the press coverage of the sport, one would think they must also be ruling the courts. Not so, say many tennis insiders. Often the best courts and play slots (and hence the better media coverage) are given to the women who are better lookers rather than the ones who are better players. This is even true at the venerable Wimbeldon tournament where officials admitted last night to putting the prettiest female players on the famous center court even if that means relegating the uglier-but-higher-seeded women to the new auxiliary courts. Wimbeldon spokesman Johnny Perkins said unapologetically, "Good looks are a factor." Observe:

In center court we have seed No 59 Maria Kirilenko of Russia

The number 1 seed? You'll find Dinara Safina of Russia way over in court 2.

Back in the center court we have No 28 seed Sorana Cirstea of Romania

But where is the number 2 player? The U.S.'s own Serena Williams (edited from original text "Venus": I'm an idiot and can't tell my Williams sisters apart.) is back on court 2.

Never having played tennis outside some embarrassing weekend recreations that we won't discuss, I have no idea if being moved to another court or being told flat out by officials that you are homely would affect one's game. Venus and Serena Williams seem to be pretty indomitable despite being stuck out in the hinterlands (I know! They're gorgeous, right?) but if it were me, I think it would mess with my head and probably my game too.

On the flip side, it also makes me wonder if the "pretty" center court girls worry more about which custom Nike tennis dress they will be wearing than if their backhand is stellar. Or, even worse, that they might avoid lifting weights or training hard because they don't want to "bulk up" and look more like the muscular athletes they are than catwalk models.

Of course no similar trend has been noticed among the men. Apparently the tennis officials are just giving the people want they want - and they think we would rather see pretty-but-weaker-players rather than the strong athletes that would show the best athletic competitions.

The question is, are they right? Do you watch tennis for the cute miniskirts and pom-pom socks? (And if so, you've heard of competitive cheerleading, right?) Any of you out there tennis players? Is an overemphasis on looks, like found in ballet and gymnastics, a big part of tennis?

Does Keeping Kids Safe Mean Making Them Fat?

Think hard - when was the last time you saw a high dive outside of the Olympics? Our local pool sure doesn't have one. Indeed, the last time I can remember seeing one was in my high school pool when I was on the diving team for about two seconds. (Although I stuck around long after I quit to help all the guys shave their legs before meets. What can I say? Swimmers are hot. Even freakishly hairless boy swimmers.) There's a reason we don't see many high diving boards anymore. Or any diving boards at all. Or merry-go-rounds. Or ten-foot-tall metal slides. Or see-saws. Or many of the playground favorites from our childhoods. It's because they're not safe.

At the risk of sounding like a cranky old-timer who walked to school in paper bag shoes - uphill both ways! - and played hackey sack with a hairball for fun, I have to say: What is happening to children these days?

A recent uproar in New York about unsafe playgrounds brought out some intense emotions in parents and children alike. And what was the object of their protestation? Tetanus-laden uncovered screws? Uncoated swing chains that pinch little fingers? George Michael policing the restrooms? Nope. They were mad about the rubber surface that was installed to protect children against falls. See, when the weather gets hot, so does the rubber and apparently the kids felt like it was burning their feet.

I do have some sympathy for those New Yorkers. As a parent I completely understand the pain that ensues when children start whining. If mine keep it up long enough I swear my ears actually bleed. As a playground veteran I can vouch for the fact that children find any number of things outdoors whine-worthy. In addition to hot playground surfaces, there's hot playground equipment, hot picnic tables and hot (read: lukewarm) juice boxes. There's also cold swing seats, cold monkey bars and cold (read: lukewarm) bottles. You know what helps with all that? Earplugs. Oh, and shoes.

Are Safe Kids Fat Kids?
In a day where it is postulated that over 85% of the U.S. population will be overweight in 20 years, it seems like a lot of parents aren't getting the message about the importance of exercise. While the above example is a little extreme, many parents end up curtailing physical activities - especially the spontaneous outdoor kind that experts have long advocated as necessary for children's mental and physical health - because of safety concerns.

I have to admit I have done it. I won't let my six-year-old walk two blocks to his friend's house to play because I'm concerned about all the street crossing he'll have to do. I don't let any of my children play outside unattended because we don't have a fenced-in yard. So if I'm busy when they want to play outside, they don't get to go outside. If they want to practice riding their bikes? I drive them (!) to a local park because we have no sidewalks in our neighborhood. In fact, most parents I know make some marked concessions to safety that our parents didn't do when we were kids.

My mother accuses me of trying to wrap my kids in bubble wrap but I am a mother to three boys. And I say this with love but they're crazy. The two-year-old gets his kicks from scaling the bookshelves and then jumping off the top. The four-year-old literally thinks he can fly, as evidenced by his ability to jump down an entire flight of stairs without touching carpet until he lands in a heap at the bottom. We've already had multiple visits to the emergency room involving such innocuous objects as a banister, a bungee cord, and a fluffy red pom-pom. Can you imagine the carnage that would ensue with, say, a pellet gun? Or a roller-derby Barbie??

What Is A Parent To Do?
There has to be some middle ground between protesting that the ground is hot on a hot day - last time I checked suing the laws of physics isn't usually productive - and leaving your kids in the care of no one but your dog while you go out on the town (Hello Peter Pan!). Out here in the frozen wasteland, parents compromise by paying exorbitant fees to have their kids play hockey. I however have a problem with a sport that makes me pay out the ying so my kids can knock around the noggin I spent nine months gestating. (I didn't even eat soft cheese because it might be bad for them!) I suppose the biggest problem is what kids are doing instead of playing outside: generally something involving a screen.

Safety is a concern for adults wishing to play in the outdoors as well. Even with reflective gear, cell phones and pepper spray available, many women cite safety as a major reason they don't exercise outside. Not to mention that injuries and accidents can happen to the best of us. Aron Ralston, anyone? (Hint: he's the man who cut off his own arm with a pocket knife to save his life.)

Other than spending a lot of time wishing I lived in a place where I could chuck my kids out the front door after breakfast and tell them not to return until the dinner bell rings, what can I do? How do you guys balance the concerns of safety with the need for exercise? And, more importantly, how do you get your kids to stop with the whining??