If You Follow Sports… Be Normal About It!

The Olympics just ended. March Madness is in full swing. Baseball season is upon us. Before you know it, football will be starting up again.

According to Google, upwards of 84% of men consider themselves sports fans with 44% of men claiming to be “avid” fans.

Following sports is common. It’s pretty normal. The vast majority of the time, it’s nothing to be concerned about.

But sports, like anything, can be taken too far.

Today, let’s discuss what a healthy relationship with sports looks like and, more importantly, why it’s so damaging for kids to have a dad who has an unhealthy relationship with sports.

But first, I’d like to describe to you my own relationship with sports to give you a bit of context around where this advice is coming from.

At present, as a busy dad in my early forties, I don’t follow sports all that closely. Sure, I consider myself a “fan” of teams like the Yankees and Bills, for example, but I can’t recite whole lineups/rosters. I keep tabs on standings and stats to some degree, but only in order to see if something noteworthy or historical is happening across a season.

I can’t remember the last time I watched an entire game on TV.

So, given this picture of a guy who really doesn’t follow sports all that closely, you might think that I am out of my depth trying to give advice on how to have a healthy relationship with sports.

But I wasn’t always this disconnected from sports. Quite the contrary. When I was younger, I was heavily into sports.

As a kid in the 90s I LOVED sports! It was a decade full of moments and memories. We had MJ and the Threepeats. We had the Knicks/Pacers rivalry. We had Sampras and Agassi. We had the Yankees dynasty. We had Mark Messier and Wayne Gretzkey. We had Tyson biting Evander’s ear off. We had Jim Abbott’s no-hitter. We had Wells’ and Cone’s perfect games. We had the Dream Team. We had Space Jam. We had Emmitt Smith and Barry Sanders. We had Ken Griffey Jr. We had “Wide Right” and Jeffrey Maier.

Of course I followed sports as a kid! As a kid, I could rattle off batting averages, ERAs, starting lineups, and a host of other stats. I could tell you who was on track to win MVPs or scoring titles. I knew what teams were how-many-games-back in the wild card race.

And this was all before the internet! I knew all of this from pouring over the sports section of the local newspaper and from watching Sportscenter every day.

So, when it comes to following sports… I get it. I really do. I was that person.

But, as I got older, more important things took priority. I found that I needed to spend my time doing other things. I didn’t have time to watch games or highlights or memorize numbers anymore. The limited space in my brain was taken up with things that mattered more to me.

And so, I fell out of touch with sports. That happened roughly fifteen years ago. It’s been so long since I seriously followed sports that there are now new statistics used and I have no idea what they are! Like, what the heck is OPS+ and WAR?

I remember when only three stats mattered for a non-pitcher… batting average, home runs, runs-batted-in. That’s it. Those were the only things that would flash on the screen when a guy came up to bat. And one could get a pretty clear picture of how that guy was as a hitter from those three stats alone.

I also have very fond memories where sports were the main players.

I used to love watching football games with my dad on chilly autumn days and then going outside and throwing his hat around the yard (we didn’t always have a proper football, so we sometimes used my dad’s newsboy cap instead).

A little later, I remember going to Yankee games with my stepdad. We’d walk down the Grand Concourse to the old stadium and every time we’d get giant cookies at the same bakery. We’d watch the game and talk for hours.

I remember sitting in a room full of Red Sox fans, watching Boone’s pennant-winning home run.

I remember sitting in a thunderous NYC pub watching David Tyree stick the ball to his helmet.

So, even as a busy adult who doesn’t really watch sports, I fully understand how special watching sports can be and how they can often be the backdrop for so many wonderful life moments.

And while I think it’s childish and unattractive for a young man without kids to be TOO into sports, it usually isn’t all that problematic.

But then that guy has kids. And all of a sudden that same relationship with sports IS problematic.

Why, though? What changed?

Well, what changed is that now that guy has to be a role model for his children. He has to demonstrate emotional regulation. He has to appear calm and rational.

If you are too emotionally invested in sports or get too upset about the outcomes of games, you are showing your children that you are the kind of guy who lets things that you have NO CONTROL OVER affect your mood and happiness. Your kids will see you pouring tons of emotional energy into the outcome of a game played by a bunch of millionaires you’ve never met who don’t even know you exist. When they lose, THEY shrug their shoulders and go back to their mansions and supermodels. But YOU spend the rest of the day (or week!) moping about being a d*ck to everyone around you.

Is that the kind of guy who want to be? Someone who doesn’t have an internal locus of control? Someone whose feelings are so fragile that they can be buffeted by something as cosmically insignificant as a called strike or game-changing fumble?

What being too emotionally invested in sports tells your kids is that Daddy does not control his own happiness… the men in the tight pants and colorful shirts do.

Do you want your kids to see you as emotionally brittle? How do you think that translates to how secure they feel around you, especially in an emergency? Do you think that THEY think that Daddy can hang tough in a serious situation when they see him going to pieces every Sunday afternoon?

What it all boils down to is that, at the end of the day, sports really aren’t all that important. That’s hard to see when you’re young, but it should become crystal clear once you have kids. Once you become a dad, you should have a very clear picture of “Important” versus “Not Important”. Sports fall into the latter category.

Again, that’s not saying that you should abandon following sports all together. But don’t be weird about it.

Here are some tips for making sure you’re a normal person when it comes to sports…

Don’t get upset about it.

This is the big one. Remember… you have no control over it and nothing actually bad will happen if your team loses. Life goes on EXACTLY as it did before that missed field goal or botched grounder.

Remember… games are supposed to be fun!

This is what we were all taught as youngsters and it holds true even now. If you’re going to follow sports, it should provide enjoyment irrespective of the outcome! If you find yourself only enjoying it when your team wins, then see the first point above.

Use sports as a way to bond with your kids.

Lately, my oldest son has expressed interest in watching football. No problem. I put on a few games last season and we sat together for a little bit and watched while I explained what was happening. I explained to him that following sports can be fun and it’s definitely fun getting caught up in it (see the earlier mentions of the 2003 ALCS and the Helmet Catch game). I even talked to him about the Miracle On Ice and how sometimes sports can take on larger meanings in society. The important thing wasn’t that he and I were watching football, or any specific team (it was the Bills)… the important thing was that we were together. He probably won’t remember much of what he watched, but he’ll remember sitting and chatting with Daddy. THAT’S how sports should be used.

Also, watching sports is a great way to talk to your kids about what hard work and dedication look like and that, sometimes, even the best players fail.

Don’t neglect things in order to follow sports.

Please, oh, please do not be one of those caricatures of fathers/husbands who flop on the couch all weekend to watch hours of football and neglect anything having to do with the house/kids. You cannot neglect your daily duties. If you’re watching for a little bit, fine, but none of this watching-TV-all-day-every-Sunday business.

“Watching football” or “being a fan” is not a hobby. It shouldn’t eat up your time to the detriment of ACTUALLY IMPORTANT things. You shouldn’t have time to watch sports all day.

Also, you really need to reexamine your life if you can recite fantasy stats but you don’t know your kid’s shoe size. That’s literally neglecting your family in favor of sports, which again, do not matter nearly as much.

 Don’t wear jerseys or have too many sports pictures on the walls.

I wrote an article a while back about why, as a man, you shouldn’t wear sports jerseys and I am going to make the same points here that I did in that article (only more succinctly).

Basically, wearing a shirt with the name of another man on the back indicates to your kids that they should look up to someone OTHER than Dad… because that’s exactly what Dad does.

Don’t do that. Don’t relinquish your status as top dog in the eyes of your family.

Also, cool it with the sports pictures on the walls. A picture of you AND YOUR KIDS at a baseball game? Great! A bunch of pictures of other people’s accomplishments that don’t affect you at all? Not great.

Your walls should be covered with reminders of YOUR life and YOUR accomplishments. Not someone else’s.

DON’T GAMBLE!

Gambling is an awful and irresponsible thing to do.

It’s tragic that smartphones have normalized gambling to such an extent. They have made gambling so easy and frictionless that it’s become more and more commonplace, to the point where I see countless ads for betting platforms.

My dad was a gambler. But back then it wasn’t nearly as easy to do. He had to actually GO to the racetrack (or to the local OTB, which he took my sister and me to with concerning regularity). I can’t imagine how damaging it would have been for someone like him to have 24/7 access to gambling apps.

Don’t gamble. Not even a little bit.

The bottom line here is that, yes, following sports can be fun, but only up to a point.

So, go ahead and follow sports, but just make sure you’re being normal about it.