Sports = stupid people's version of politics

So I'm in Gwaltney's A block AP Gov't and he's explaining different ways to find good opionionated political news, one being the "blogosphere." He starts explaining what exactly the blogosphere is (which I thought was weird because I think everyone knows what a blog is) and I was about to chip in and say I have my own blog...but that would mean I would have to say "I have my own sports blog."

"Oh, uh, a 'sports' blog..." Gwaltney would reply in a gwaltney-like manner while scratching his chin "...so you write about which foo-ball team is the best and why Kobe is innocent, huh?" I would then immediately shoot myself due to the absolute ownage (pwnage, is it?) that would ensue.

So, the entire day following that class, I started to think why would saying I have a "sports" blog be embarrasing?
Oh yeah, that's right, because sports is for dumb people.

If any sports person or athlete reading this finds the last sentence offensive, I'm sorry...because I do too. But let's face the facts, put a politician and an athlete in some sort of critical thinking challenge...we all know, er, we all assume to know who wins. If you change the channel on some TV in a hospital waiting room from MSNBC to ESPN, I'm sure that the first judgement all the others waiting make is "well, he likes sports more than politics...so he's probably not that smart." Society will always think of us dedicated sports fans as just guys sitting in front of the couch watching Sportscenter and updating our fantasy football teams once every two hours...which is often true.

The Sports section of the newspaper is usually the last, usually the out-of-place one that doesn't really fit in because...well, just because. I remember reading that part of the Talon (school newspaper) where they have readers' comments and seeing someone say something along the lines of "It's only the section where all the jocks go to see their names and tell their friends." Nobody reads the Sports section with the intention of learning something or becoming somewhat enlightened. In the world of politics, culture, and entertainment, the ideas for content are endless. For sports, all we really have is the scoreboard and stats, and that daily who -did-something-against-the-law-today update and maybe even another typical inspirational story in sports. Beyond that, it just gets boring...or just way too smart.

In politics, there's something so grand to have an opinion on that only a few can actually grasp everything. There's the Bill O'Reillys, the Anderson Coopers, and even the Steven Colberts who just make politics seem so intimidating that most just turn away. Sports, not so much. Our version of Steven Colbert is the Sklar brothers...that's about as liberal, cynical we get. There are no channels devoted to how much the Yankees suck, no channels that leave the viewer more aware of the world than he/she was before watching. Millions of people watch PTI, but no one really watches Kornheiser rant and then eventually says "Wow, my has actually been changed by watching two guys arguing with no compromise at the end."

I would love to contrast the play in sports to the play in politics and how that relates to my argument, but that's just stating the obvious. Politicians' decisions = educated, motivated people making choices that can effect mass populations for centuries, or forever. Athletes' decisions = not really motivated to be educated men deciding on whether he should hit the seam route or the 5 yard post.

I really am trying not to generalize, there are tons of sports fan who qualify as "intelligent." But I'm not measuring intelligence in a tangible way with IQ tests or something, it's more in a comparative point of view. When you watch sports, you're not watching the world working, you're watching a team battling another team. You're watching guys who mostly put something physical over education. This isn't people living or dying, this is people literally making money right in front of your eyes.

I guess I'm just trying to say that us devoted sports fans are stupid. When there's so much going on in the world that we should be concerned about, we can't stop thinking about how crazy it is that Peyton is playing against Eli. More viewers tuned in to see Monday Night Football than the "Path to 9/11" last Monday. Especially considering that the Monday night game featured two dismal teams, I guess we could say that sports is popular for those with the attention span not fit for political affairs, which seems to be many of us.

I can make a damn good argument of why Jim Brown is the best football player ever, why the Celtics are the best franchise ever and why Floyd Landis deserves to be stoned. But none of those debating skills would help me as I collapse within a minute if I tried to argue why America needs to leave Iraq.

I don't have much of an argument in this post, but I guess that just proves my point...its almost factual that sports fans will always be considered stupider than everyone else.

But gotdamn, if I gotta be stupid to love sports...well then go Celtics!