Being friends with girls is tough. In the friend group, there’s the girly girl, the smart girl, the pretty girl, and the creative one. As for me, I’m the sporty one. I’ve grown up as an athlete, playing any kind of sport imaginable. Sometimes it’s hard to not be able to talk about my favorite teams with my friends.
Now some of my friends like watching football and baseball, but for me that’s not enough. I love watching all of the European soccer teams, and on top of that I keep up with the statistics of all my favorite teams. The worst part about this is that I feel like I can’t talk to my girlfriends about it, so I talk to guys about it. Part of me thinks it’s a lot better to talk to boys about sports anyway. I have not met one boy that does not enjoy watching football or any kind of sport. I keep telling myself that I will make the best type of girlfriend. I love spending Sunday’s watching football and keeping up with my fantasy football team. The best part is that guys are always really impressed with me and with all of the knowledge I have when it comes to different games.
One thing that comes to my mind is gossip hour with my friends. When we all get together to catch up and I ask them what is going on in their lives, they have so much to talk about. My friends aren’t worried about what team won what playoff game, or who got traded and who got the worst end of the deal. When it finally comes around to me, that’s all I want to talk about.
I think college and professional athletics is what keeps our communities glued together. If you look at your TV guide on any night of the week, you will see some kind of professional or college game being broadcast. I believe that watching sports teams together at a bar, or in class, or with your family brings us together for one common interest. If women were more involved, it would make us seem more as equals, and men would have more respect for women. This doesn’t mean that women have to fake having an interest for guys to respect them, but the women that are interested, like me, don’t get enough credit.
I think that being the only friend in my friend group that watches sports means that I am trying to break the stereotype of boys being the only ones who watch athletic events. In our world, there aren’t that many women who want to take on sports and journalism and reporting. I am trying to break that barrier and the stereotype that has been given to women and sports viewing. I want to make a ripple effect of women becoming interested in sports. When I graduate and am ready to work full-time, I want to do something with sports reporting. Right now, there are plenty of women who work in sports and reporting, but I want to take it to the next level of being an owner, general managing, or CEO.
