There were 700,000+ people in attendance for the Super Bowl victory parade for the Seattle Seahawks. I almost took my kids. Almost. But my husband couldn’t join, and I realized that navigating that crowd by myself with a 5 and 2-year-old seemed, uhhh, dumb.
But we have still been enjoying the Seahawks excitement this season. The Super Bowl was amazing, the energy in the city has been electric, and even if you weren’t a die-hard fan before this season (I fully admit that I wasn’t), you would’ve been hard-pressed not to jump on the bandwagon this year.
All this football hoopla has led to several conversations with my daughter about sports. I think she’s been fascinated to see how a game like football can excite and unite so many people. I do want her to know that playing sports can be a great experience—which is why for now, I will show her how other people do it, as opposed to telling her about my own attempts at athleticism.
I’m not exactly an Olympian—due in part to my wankles and other shortcomings in the areas of ‘coordination’ and ‘skill.’ I was on the tennis team in high school, but I mostly told jokes in the back of the bus on the way to meets (are they called meets? or matches? This question is representative of my tennis acumen).
I was also recruited by the girls basketball coach in the 8th grade. I’ll never forget how excited he was by my height and potential, and how disappointed he was when he actually saw me play.
I made it onto the golf team in college. Then again, I went to a small liberal arts school where anyone could be on the team. All you had to do was show up.
My dad was so excited about my interest in his favorite pastime that he bought me a set of golf clubs. On the first day of practice, I was highly alarmed to discover that one of my clubs was shorter than the other one, so I asked the coach if this would be a problem. She was not impressed by my knowledge of the sport. That was the beginning of the end of my golfing career. (That story still makes my father wince.)
Fortunately my husband is more athletically-inclined—although he is more of a soccer person than a football person. Or shall I say, he is a “football” person, not a “football” person. Ugh I don’t even care what that means. Am I really writing a post about football and sports? I need to wrap this up before I injure myself.
I will do my best to help my kids enjoy sports if they want to, even though I am more of an athletic supporter (tee hee). My daughter is excited to watch the Winter Olympics, so that should be a fun chance to talk more about the hard work and dedication of athletes, the thrill of competition, the importance of helmets, the slipperiness of ice, the danger of steep hills, the differences between bobsled and luge (no clue), the discomfort of spandex, the humor of curling, and so on. I’m no Bob Costas, but I got this.
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