In Washington State where I grew up, they gave away Seattle Mariner games tickets to high school students with good grades just to fill the stadium. The men in my family never watched sports and my mom, who went to college on a voice scholarship and sang classical music, wasn’t much into athletic endeavors either. Sure, I went to a lot of high school football games, but when they cheered “First and ten, do it again,” I thought they were saying “First in ten, do it again,” and I had no clue what that meant. For me, it was a social outing and besides, I had crushes on a couple of guys on the team.
Then I met my husband. David has played virtually every sport known to man involving some kind of round object. His grandfather wrote a book on golf, and his parents were longtime members of a golf club. As natives of Wisconsin they’re all die-hard Green Bay Packer/Milwaukee Brewer/ Wisconsin Badger fans.
I was working in D.C. for my home-state senator at the time, and got tickets to a Seahawks/Redskins game. That’s what really sealed our relationship – David was going to stick with a girl who could get him into pro football games. (Unfortunately, shortly after we married, my senator lost his election. No more free tickets. But he had vowed “until death do us part,” not “until the sports ticket source runs dry.”)
In any case, over the course of our early relationship, David tried to ease me into the sports world. We started with golf. He took to me a driving range and taught me how to swing a club. We were dating at the time, so he said all the right things: “You have a natural swing, honey,” and “You’ll be playing par golf in no time.”
Our first real course outing was up on Cape Code with two people who, I swear, had been born with clubs in their hands. I teed off in front of them and the clubhouse at lunch time. I’d swung three times and still hadn’t connected with the ball, and I was certain my audience was cracking up over the mid-day entertainment. Three holes later, I turned in my clubs and became the cart driver and beverage server.
Next, we tried racquetball. David kept telling me I was too timid when the ball was against the wall, so one night, I decided to be big-time aggressive. I drove hard toward the ball, tripped over his foot, crashed into the corner and sliced open my head. A bunch of stitches later, I signed up for aerobics.
Eventually, David and I had two daughters, both of whom were into horses. So we became horse show parents. I even made myself an apron with pockets designed specifically to hold brushes, hoof picks, Show Sheen and bobby pins.
All the while, David watched sports on TV, encouraging me to join him. I took the opportunity to sew or go shopping or hang with girlfriends.
In her teenage years, our oldest daughter suddenly became a football fan (I think it had something to do with a guy she was dating). Chelsea and David started following the Indianapolis Colts, while our other daughter, Victoria, and I found better things to do.
But Victoria was often busy, so it became clear that if I wanted to spend time with my family, I was going to have to learn to enjoy watching sports. So I started watching games with Chelsea and David. Sometimes we watched at home; sometimes we went to Buffalo Wild Wings or Rafferty’s.
And you know what? I grew to absolutely love it! Chelsea and David would explain the plays and strategy and I would listen to the crowd roaring whenever our team scored.
Next, I started working on behalf of Verizon Wireless, which has an exclusive relationship with the NFL and offers a cool app called NFL Mobile. I had to demonstrate the app to sports reporters, so I needed to talk the lingo. I studied and watched and learned.
And now I, too, am a diehard Packers/Brewers/Badgers/Cardinals/Wildcats/Colts fan.
To me, the most important thing in life is family. And if I want to spend time with my family, I have to love sports.
Victoria and I still slip away to shop as often as we can, though. Some things never change.
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