subject: The True Sports Fan: A Twelve Year-old [print this page] About a hundred years ago, and probably two hundred pounds ago, I was twelve. I didn't have a care in the world, and school was just some place I went until summer rolled around. I played baseball and basketball and football, I wrestled and ran track, and even skateboarded before you could make any money at it.
I was a very athletic kid and loved sports more than anything else, especially the Minnesota Vikings during football season, and the St. Louis Cardinals during baseball season. I knew every player, on just about every team. I knew what number they wore, which college they came from, what positions they played, their strengths and weaknesses, and often what their favorite food was. I was a font of sports information, and I dare anyone today to tell me that back then I didn't know at least as much as any professional sports broadcaster.
Then something really, really bad happened. I grew up. All of a sudden I had a job, a girlfriend, and other things besides sports became interesting as well. I discovered that with more responsibilities came a huge sacrifice: my encyclopedic cache of sports stats and tidbits was slowly being replaced with things like the rules of grammar, math theorems I knew would never be useful, and an interest in girls I knew would always be useful. In short, my youth gave way to growing up and it was at the expense of all that hard won sports knowledge. Talk about unfair.
Today, I know what I need to know, but still have a knack for all the finer tidbits and statistics about sports. However, I live vicariously through my nephew Connor who, it should come as no coincidence, is twelve. In addition to playing every sport like I did, he also follows every sport college and professional with a level of detail that would make Machiavelli envious. I mean he set his DVR to record all six rounds of the recent NFL draft for crying out loud, and if that isn't enough to warm your heart I don't know what will.
We had a good long talk about the draft, and he knew the entire first round by heart, including the trades that took place so that teams could jockey their positions to get the players they really wanted. He knew which players came from which colleges, their position, their college stats, and had an opinion on how well they might actually do as a professional footballer. He also knew which players from our state went in the draft, in which rounds they went, and to which teams.
In so many ways, hanging out with Connor is a lot like hanging out with my twelve-year-old self. Sometimes it's literally like watching the replay of my life at that age. For my money I'd say the only thing better than being twelve years old is being twelve years old forever. For any true sports fan, those are fondest of days.
