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Valor is as Valor Does
In which I post about team sports non-disparagingly.
I work at Boston University; their men's hockey team won the NCAA Championship in what I am told is quite dramatic fashion, and had a ticker-tape parade yesterday. Fortunately, none of our students skipped class, and no drunk or lost revellers came into the school to disrupt our day, so it all went well; today all the grass is littered festively with red-white-and-blue ticker tape, and we're all discussing whether or not the Athletic Director will wear his T-shirt from the parade just this week or all next week too.
I was going to snark about it (the whole sports culture in the US, bla bla) but, considering the above lack of strife associated with their celebration, and considering that these young men did achieve something impressive, maybe this time I don't need to. I mean, it's not like they'd know I did, or care what some fat little woman thinks if they did know. But I would. Maybe failing to sneer at this is not some capitulation to all the people who've told me that sports are normal and healthy and correct while my own hobbies are pathological. Or maybe I'm just in too good of a mood (and no, dear Universe, this is not a challenge to change that!)
I do reserve the right to tease my coworker if he shows up in his parade T-shirt, though.
I work at Boston University; their men's hockey team won the NCAA Championship in what I am told is quite dramatic fashion, and had a ticker-tape parade yesterday. Fortunately, none of our students skipped class, and no drunk or lost revellers came into the school to disrupt our day, so it all went well; today all the grass is littered festively with red-white-and-blue ticker tape, and we're all discussing whether or not the Athletic Director will wear his T-shirt from the parade just this week or all next week too.
I was going to snark about it (the whole sports culture in the US, bla bla) but, considering the above lack of strife associated with their celebration, and considering that these young men did achieve something impressive, maybe this time I don't need to. I mean, it's not like they'd know I did, or care what some fat little woman thinks if they did know. But I would. Maybe failing to sneer at this is not some capitulation to all the people who've told me that sports are normal and healthy and correct while my own hobbies are pathological. Or maybe I'm just in too good of a mood (and no, dear Universe, this is not a challenge to change that!)
I do reserve the right to tease my coworker if he shows up in his parade T-shirt, though.
no subject
What I have a problem with is the exalted position team sports have in US culture, their "All-American" status, their normalcy. Having been mocked (and knowing guys who were seriously bullied) for liking science fiction by people whose devotion ran as deep or deeper to team sports, and having watched my fellow students discouraged from reading and writing for fun in favor of watching sports, I tend to view them with a jaundiced eye. As the Onion once put it, "Walking Sports Database Scorns Walking Sci-Fi Database (http://www.theonion.com/content/node/38664)".T hat was what I didn't want to agree with, when I decided that I didn't have to support that idea to respect this particular team's accomplishment.
*rereads*
Possibly, I am occasionally bitter. *smiles*
no subject