COLUMN: Watch as a non-jock begins his harangue
Every fall, football season returns to Logan, stifling the residents of Cache Valley like a pungent cloud of testosterone; causing men everywhere to spontaneously swear and make lewd gestures at their television sets. This makes perfect sense to me. Oh, wait. No it doesn’t.
Don’t get me wrong, I enjoy watching football on TV as much as the next man, as long as the next man is a woman – and one that doesn’t like watching football. Of course, I’ll act interested in a game, so long as a female thinks it’s something I should be doing. (Yes, I am THAT pathetic.)
As a matter of fact, I would probably feign interest in cock-fighting if there were a girl involved … and the girl were shaped like Penelope Cruz. (Did I mention I was shallow, too? Oh, sweet angels of mercy, you have no idea.)
When it comes down to it, I’m just not a jock. You might even say I’m the antithesis of a jock … seeing as how I know what the word “antithesis” means.
Alas, I know how taken aback you are, but it’s true. I have just never been able to relate to football or the crazed whack-jobs that do little else than memorize football-related trivia.
I suppose being athletically inept might have something to do with it, but I’m beginning to doubt the legitimacy of that theory. I mean, look at our football team. They seem to enjoy playing regardless of their capacity to lose. Why can’t I be like that? Ah, the halcyon bliss of ignorance. Wistful sigh.
I kid of course; as I am wont to do. Utah State’s football team actually deserves a lot of respect, and by “respect” I mean “unmitigated fear of getting throttled like a baby seal pup for making fun of them.” I am practically dripping with respect.
It has developed over years of vague threats from those who would sooner have me killed than look up another word in the dictionary.
Once again, I’m joking! There’s nothing wrong with being a jock. Jocks should continue to be jocks; wearing ill-fitting muscle shirts and pinning for their lost high school popularity, and I’ll continue to harangue them mercilessly for it. Live and let live, that’s what I say.
“Why the bitterness?” you may ask aloud, much to the chagrin of those around you trying to study.
Perhaps my disdain for sports, and those associated with it, can be traced to my embattled youth in the Hell Extension program known as Little League Baseball. Every year I signed up according to the mandate of my parents, only to find out that I SUCKED JUST AS BAD AS LAST YEAR! SWEET MONKEYS, HOW IS IT POSSIBLE?
Nevertheless, it was apparently “for my own benefit” seeing as how I would need to accustom myself to the path of mockery I was destined to tread for the duration of my childhood and into my college years; where I still manage to be the paladin of ridicule.
The apex of derision came recently when I was surpassed in NFL knowledge by a female engineering student (we’ll call her Shifty McNoying); this not only made me inferior in the realm of athletics to engineers, but also to WOMEN engineers … and consequently all inanimate objects, including bath water. Curse that Shifty McNoying and her superior genes.
But I have little use for such puerile ranting now. My little league days have since passed and I’ve humbly submitted to my ill-gotten fate (graduating as an engineer and making lots of money).
But more importantly, I’ve come to realize I might never be athletically gifted, and perhaps I’ll never experience the homoerotic desire to slap my teammate on the butt; but I’m somewhat consoled by the fact that someday in the future, I’ll get to force my kid to play Little League, too.
Blake W. Bingham is a senior in engineering, happily avoiding unnecessary physical exertion. E-mail your complaints to bwb@cc.usu.edu, where they will readily be disregarded.