Why I’ve Never Written a Sports Blog…Until Now

I reckon I’d better write this before sports overload becomes burnout.

Last night at work, I was sitting at my desk listening to ESPN Radio when the question hit me:  Why haven’t I written a sports-related blog yet? Out of nearly 300 posts that run the gamut, none have specifically covered sports in any way, shape or form. I’ve cited instances such as the 1995-96 Chicago Bulls winning 72 games or the cultural significance of Muhammad Ali the boxer and man, yet I have not been able to convert shop talk into an entertaining, informative forum.

Certainly it is a well-known fact that beyond my alma mater THE Henderson State University (Go Reddies!), the sports franchises I truly follow are the Miami Heat, Boston Red Sox, and New England Patriots. Even then, none of them define who I am as a fan:  in other words, I’m not quite a diehard obsessive but I care more than the casual soul who waits for the playoffs to join a bandwagon.

Whatever you do, do not park in my space.

Maybe because I never played any sport for a school team. Aside from the

intramural and city leagues and Sunday afternoons after church back home, I don’t really have skin in attending all of the practices, training camps, camaraderie sessions, etc. as all we did was organize a series of pickup games at the Boys and Girls Club, Gatling Park, the Garrison, Bishop Park, or if I was feeling particularly gamesome, the Pine Street School with Conway’s best ballers. These days, hoops for me means backing my car out of the driveway and parking it in the street to take around twenty layups, jumpers, and free throws before I get too tired and go back in the house.

When you have one of just six basketball hoops in the entire subdivision of 101 houses, you kind of have control of the games. Who got next?

I think the other reason why I had never written a sports blog until now is that the games evoke a wide range of emotions, all of which Arkansas Razorbacks football fans endure every fall Saturday and on Black Friday. Frankly, I’m just too analytical to live and die over a team’s seasonal fortunes. Moreover, D-Wade isn’t making our mortgage payments nor did Big Papi volunteer to pay our credit card and Toyota balances each month.

In addition, I would have been a likely early adopter of sports analytics if the science had existed in more places than my lunch table in high school or in the statistician’s room. In effect, it was nontraditional sports betting – on human capital and how the numbers worked relative to game-time performance; after all, any average Joe could establish a gambling ring if he had enough bettors and the money to pay out wages. Within analytics, a player’s value and efficiency precede talent, grit, and hustle meaning the “junkyard dogs” and smarter court-aware players are worth more than some of the guys who lead their teams in scoring every night as their intrinsic value shows up on PER* charts instead of the box scores. Disagree? See what the Houston Rockets value more than guard James Harden’s scoring.

Analytics – the study of a thing to determine its parts or elements of which it is composed and subsequent value

It’s why Miami will never trade or release power forward Udonis Haslem. Imagine the PR disaster if the 305 native who helped the team to three championship rings left the Heat for any reason beyond retirement.

While we learn life lessons from playing sports about teamwork and staying the course, we can also pick them up in a myriad of other relationships not limited to multiplayer video games; group projects; participating in a band (marching or rock, it doesn’t matter); and productive debates that do not stymie progress. Sports have become a 24/7/365 phenomenon that never truly ends anymore especially in an era of free agency where players choose their workplaces to the chagrin of fantasy team owners and social media commentators in worse shape than the writer castigating them for leaving their beleaguered clubs for sunnier climes. It still doesn’t exactly answer why I’ve waited over 3 ½ years to write a sports blog, but it may never be enough to appease diehard fans who hang onto each word as if it were the Magna Carta as they lie in wait to pounce on any crack to an argument regardless of its flimsy talking points and hyperbole.

*PER – player efficiency rate