i have a newfound love for sports journalism.
in the past few weeks (actually since hunter s. thompson died), i've been reading espn.com's page 2 and as much as i love (nay -- obsess over) the news and journalists who take themselves far too seriously (matt drudge anyone?), i've come to take sports journalism to heart.
i am the last person on the planet to care about sports, with the possible exception of tennis. (since pete "the king of swing" sampras retired, i lost my motivation to really care... except i feel the need to point out that andy roddick is possibly the most beautiful sports player alive.) when the superbowl came about, it was slightly embarrassing because i didn't even know who was playing until about twenty minutes before the game started. just my luck, i found myself being interviewed for a local news channel about my feelings on the game, and what did i talk about? the commercials. i got my fifteen minutes of fame, and i talked about burt reynolds. (by the way, if you feel the need to see rob talk about "puff daddy" with his usual enthusiasm, we still have that on tape.)
my point is that every time i read page 2, i am continually surprised about how much i get into it. granted, rob corddroy from "the daily show" is a frequent writer, but still, i find myself reading more and more about something i don't care about, only because of the writing style. take today, for example. i stumbled across an article by bill simmons entitled "who is the u2 of sports?" well naturally, being the giant u2 fan that i am, i was pretty excited to read it. as simmons made his analogies, i found myself wanting to know who the athletes he was talking about were. obviously i know who a lot of them were, considering he referenced jack nicklaus, michael jordan, wayne gretzky, and the like. i thought it was wonderful that he likened the rolling stones to muhammad ali ("the greatest until they hung around too long") and the police to john mcenroe ("gifted, tortured, ultimately unable to keep it together"). by the way, i'm going to take a moment here and state for the record that i still really like john mcenroe.
again, bringing it back to my point, sports journalism is a whole new world for me. who knows? maybe it will kindle a fire inside me that will someday burn for sports in general.
i highly doubt it, but the power of words is incredible. especially on a highly impressionable girl like myself.