Written by: Amy Van Arsdell
When you were home for Christmas break, did you gather in the living room to watch an NFL game with your family? Did you toss a basketball around with your cousins or go to a hockey game with your siblings? On my Christmas break, I went to a Seattle Kraken hockey game with my brother, and it got me thinking about how most of us are sports fans because of our communities.
My dad grew up playing after-school baseball with his brothers, so he made my brother and me play backyard “wiffle ball” whenever we had enough friends over to have two teams. When the Winter Olympics were held in Vancouver in 2010, my Canadian grandparents created their own “opening ceremony” for us in our house, complete with an Olympic torch!
In middle school, I became a Seattle Seahawks fan when the entire state of Washington cheered them into Super Bowl XLVIII, and our friends invited us to their house to watch the playoff games. In high school, I got sucked into being a hockey fan when I became friends with a girl who had season tickets to the local hockey team and told me her stories about attending games and meeting players, some of whom even knew her by name.
More recently, I became a full-time figure skating fan when I found an online community that kept me updated on how my favorite skaters were doing in annual competitions that weren’t the Olympics. I went to the World Figure Skating Championships last year and met some of my favorite skaters, and their kindness ensured I’d be their fan forever.
It’s fun to watch sports events by yourself, but it’s even more fun to watch them when you’re among a crowd of fans—or even if you have a friendly rivalry with your roommate who’s cheering for the opposite team. As a Seahawks fan attending college on the opposite side of the country, I always say “hi” to strangers if I see them wearing Seahawks merchandise, and it makes home feel less far away.
Southern’s intramurals also allow you to participate in sports with teams of your friends. If you know someone who doesn’t care that much about sports, invite them to watch a game with you. Your enthusiasm could be contagious! This week, call your grandparents, your parents or that one friend from middle school who always updated you on the NBA standings, and thank them for igniting your love of sports.
Editor’s note: I’m Amy Van Arsdell, the new sports column editor for this semester, and I’m excited to expand the scope of this column to showcase the diversity within sports. If you want to share your passion for sports with even more people, you can contribute an article to this column! Contact me at amyv@southern.edu.
