I may not be typical, but I never gave a shit about sports. I don’t even watch the Super Bowl. It was hard to get interested in something I was so bad at.

I never hit or caught a ball in Little League. Struck out every time.

Junior high football was just PE with extra equipment. It was a contest between me and this other guy to not come in last during laps. He was also the only one I managed to knock over during practice. I said, “Sorry about that,” which really pissed the coach off.

I let the quarterback get sacked the one time they let me off the bench. Worthless at football.

How about bowling. That’s the everyman sport right? I took bowling in college and on the first day, rolled the ball into a pole, rang like a gong. The coach said, “You know it IS possible to fail this class.” Pulled off a C.

And ended up covering high school sports for years. I sucked at it (now and then a coach would call me and say, “Umm, that’s not a real play”) but I liked it better than I expected.

It got me out of minimum wage land and into the newspaper business. Yes I said I’d never be a journalist after I left my diary at the old sheriff’s house. But that was before I’d spent three years night clerking for motels.

#Sports, #Journalism, #Newspapers