By Julie Buehler
Yes, Captain Obvious, I am a woman. But good grief, I can’t stand Hollywood stupidity, gossip, rumors, endless shoe shopping, tabloid magazines or sitting in a chair getting a mani-pedi.
I love sports. And I’m THANKFUL that I love sports because it’s the greatest entertainment known to mankind (womankind also).
And so, I offer you a feast of fantastic reasons to be thankful you love sports. And if you only sorta like sports the way you like your in-laws during the holidays, these could be the reasons you SHOULD love sports.
The underdog wins. For real. The Oakland Raiders, a team that hadn’t won a game all season long (0-10), stormed from behind, with a rookie quarterback and beat a playoff team AND division rival in the Kansas City Chiefs. The Chiefs hadn’t allowed a single rushing touchdown all season long, yet a 6th round pick for the Raiders, Latavius Murray scored two. One of which was the longest rushing play the Chiefs had given up, ever.
That. Really. Happened.
All of it. That’s not some fanciful, imaginative script written by a hairy dude wading through Star Wars action figures in his mom’s basement. Or, if it was, that Raiders fan can predict the future and we should hit him up for lottery numbers.
The St. Louis Rams beat the Denver Broncos in week 11, the Cleveland Browns have a quarterback that can WIN games rather than lose them in new and creatively disturbing ways, the Los Angeles Kings won the Stanley Cup as the 8th seed 2 years ago, the Kansas City Royals AND San Francisco Giants were both wild card entrants who didn’t win their divisions, but managed to win their league titles.
Every year, every week, there’s someone who no one gave a chance to, doing something only they believed was possible.
You can enjoy heady strategy and analysis, or just appreciate the simple stuff.
If you were the kid excelling at calculus and chemistry and getting swirlies for wearing that pocket protector, well, you’re in luck: Sports are fascinating to statistically analyze, break down trends, predict new trends and more. AND bonus, you’re the cool kid if you can pull the perfect stat out of your arse at the perfect time to win a sports argument. Goodbye swirly, hello free round of drinks.
But, if you’re not intellectually gifted and just appreciate a 3-color box of crayons, you’re in luck! Every sport puts on a display of physical wonder that doesn’t take a genius to understand. And if you don’t know the rules, take a few minutes and Google the rules of your new favorite entertainment and you’ll be up to speed pretty quickly. The basics are simple, like 3 outs to each inning in baseball, 2 point-shots or 3-point shots in basketball and how cool it is to watch tackling in football.
While most of it makes perfect sense and keeps the world in balance, there’s always the purely inexplicable.
Regardless of how much you know or love about sports and regardless of how little you know or love about sports, there are certain things that MAKE NO SENSE AT ALL. And that is the best part of sports.
It’s what makes the gal in your office that picks games based on how cute the quarterback is successful in the office pool week in and week out.
It’s what makes your 5-year-old nephew better at filling out your NCAA Tourney bracket than you are.
It’s what makes March Madness entirely maddening.
It’s the infield fly rule in baseball, the prevent defense concept in football and the reason hockey players don’t have teeth. We’ll never know all the answers and we don’t really want to know.
Sports offer us a look into the human condition in a 3-hour window. We see the elation, the agony, the faith, the despair. We see the comradery, the loneliness, the fights and the failures.
And we watch it all with as much understanding or introspection as we’d like.
Because we also see the cheerleaders, the dunks, the strikes, the touchdowns, the hits and the hot dogs. And it’s easy to love it all equally.
So enjoy your mashed potatoes, extra gravy and Thanksgiving Day football, because you’re enjoying the greatest entertainment in the history of mankind and that is certainly something to be thankful for.
Julie Buehler hosts the Coachella Valley’s most popular sports talk radio show, “Buehler’s Day Off” every day from 3-6 on 1010 KXPS, the valley’s all sports station. She can also be seen every morning between 6-7am on KMIR sharing the coolest stories in sports. She’s an avid gym rat, slightly sarcastic and more likely to recite Steve Young’s career passing stats than American Idol winners. Tune in M-F 3-6 pst at www.team1010.com or watch “Buehler’s Day Off” on Ustream and KMIR.com for her sports reports.
