For years now, I have hated sports. Please readers, do not leave. I don’t hate playing a nice game with the family and I am not a fanatic against all of Pro Football because of the “negative issues and ideals the NFL promotes.” I just have always been disinterested in most sports and school athletic programs. I do not mind going to a school basketball game, and if I know the players, I get into it. I just have never seen the point in watching a bunch of players run back and forth chasing after a ball. It may be because my competitive spirit is mostly non-existent, or I may just not be meant to play Pro Women’s Volleyball as a chubby creative type. Who knows?
But over the years I have developed a negative bias against naturally athletically gifted people because they often create a bias against me. I was badgered to play sports, or teased and bullied because I didn’t obviously have the capabilities to participate in school athletic programs. I developed a small grudge for all of those people who play competitive sports, not including Quidditch, and it is time for me to fess up to this.
The athletic type A personality with drive written in everything they do is scary to me. I just can’t understand wanting to win in every way, or even most ways. Life is mostly about battling myself, instead of battling the entire galaxy. Most competitive personalities enjoyed athletics in high school and college because competition is apparently fun. Creativity is fun, but I still do secretly find my small competitive side coming out every time I view a hockey game. I do not genuinely care who wins, or care to have a “favorite team” I just enjoy the game and want somebody to get beat up.
Because of the couple hockey games I have attended though, I have found that not all sports fans are type A, not all type A people are scary and that not all athletes are anything like I expect them to be. I often, ironically and sadly, choose the stereotypes to project on athletes so that I will not have to get to know them or like them in any way. Ironically, I do the same thing to athletes what was done to me for years; I refuse to get to know them because of the stereotypes.
Another reason I have become more enlightened of my negative bias against athletes is because my favorite athlete just so happens to be my first college roommate. I began to get to know someone who is completely different from the normal theater nerds I usually know and love. She changed my mind about a lot of athletes. She does not judge me about me weight like others had when I was young, nor pressure me to join in during a game of basketball. She takes me for who I am and listens when I yammer on about interests that are different than hers. She also has a wide variety of interests. She is nothing like I would have ever expected her to be if someone would have told me I would be rooming with a talented female basketball player. I feel bad because I get mad at other people for not giving me the benefit of the doubt, but I didn’t give it to her, or most other high school and college athletes. All this is to say, this is a public apology from me to the people that I chose not to understand. I am sorry for subscribing to the stereotypes of female and male athletes.
