posted
I think I just got turned down for an interview because I don't, nor have I really ever, played sports.
I was taking part in what I guess would be considered a pre-screening call with the owner of a small insurance agency. Everything was going really well. He noticed the college I went to and asked if I played any sports there. I mentioned that I worked all the way through college, and I am not really a sports fan anyways. His voice got low and basically said, "well anyways, I'll be in touch." I haven't heard back in 3 days.
Being 6'5" I have always been asked if I play basketball. I think I was so pressured into it growing up that I rebelled by not wanting any parts of it.
I love SCUBA diving, skydiving, hiking, swimming, boating, jogging, playing poker, bowling, and shooting pool. Yet when I mention I don't like team sports I feel like some people consider me less of a man. I could normally care less, but this guy REALLY bothered me.
I make it a point to attend a Washington Nationals game once a year in honor of my grandfather who died before he got to see a baseball team back in DC. But to be honest I probably spend most of the game people watching. (There are some really cute women at baseball games.) You can never go wrong at a place that serves junk food and beer.
I will occasionally attend other events if someone offers me a free ticket, I rarely turn anything down that is free. But I have no attention span for watching sports on tv. Its so bad that I thought the Harry Potter quidditch matches were a little drawn out.
Don't get me started on golf. My boss comes in and bores me to death with the details of every golf game he plays. He makes it sound like if I ever want to own my own agency, it will just be expected of me to play with the other agents.
Well I guess I will just be an outcast then.
Posts: 3134 | Registered: Mar 2005
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posted
It is. And it's played in DIRECT SUNLIGHT! I hate sunlight. They should play it at night riding golf carts and hitting glow in the dark balls. I'm a woman, so I guess I am culturally allowed to be bored by most team sports. I did like watching Jordan help win the championship years ago and hockey is kind of cool. Baseball and football bore me transparent, but soccer is kind of cool as it has men with nice bodies.
Posts: 9942 | Registered: Mar 2003
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posted
Football is my favorite. It's nicely paced and doesn't involve a lot of back and forth movements. Baseball does nothing for me because it's boring. Soccer and hockey both involve too much running back and forth to no end. And you hope you get a goal or two. Basketball is just way too much back and forth in a short period of time. My brain can't handle that.
Posts: 30 | Registered: Dec 2006
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posted
I have a healthy enjoyment of team sports, but my true loves lie almost entirely in the "other" list you gave: SCUBA diving, skydiving, hiking, swimming, boating, jogging, playing poker, bowling, and shooting pool. I love all of those things (though I suck at bowling and pool). And I consider them sports.
I do really like basketball though. Again, I suck at it. I'm what they call a "role player". Ok at most things, not good at anything. But I enjoy watching it and playing it.
Posts: 2827 | Registered: Jul 2005
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posted
Uhg. Sports. Our whole family feels the sting of the non-sporty outcast around here.
I mean, we are all cyclists, and we go biking, hiking and canoeing together, We even occassionally play a little b-ball in teh driveway, or soccor. But the kids don't seem interested in playing team sports, which is fine with us.
I used to play soccor and volley ball, and the hubby and I used to play tennis for fun. I was good at the the sports I tried, but it just wasn't all that much fun.
But in this neighborhood? OMG. Sports are such a big frickin' deal that a man refused to go with his daughter to the ER for tests after she was injured in a game, because he wanted to see who won. O_O My first thought when I heard that story was, "I hope his insurance is paid up, because if I was his wife he'd been needing it soon."
Don't EVEN get me started on the neighborhood Tennis Nazis.
Of course, my unwillingness to feign interest in such things may have more to do with our perceived strangeness than our lack of participation.
I once giggled to another patron at a gym about a body builder I knew in HS who always walked around like his armpits were badly sunburned. One of the trainers heard me. Oy. And when I cut back on the calf exercizes because my calves were getting that stringy, cut look, another trainer couldn't believe I didn't want to be "cut" because it's so "sexy".
I cannot imagine. I have enough trouble zipping my high boots without gettinhg bigger claves, thanks.
Posts: 9293 | Registered: Aug 2000
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posted
I am no sports fan, but I've really enjoyed golfing the handful of times I've gone. Well, except for the whole hitting the ball part.
Posts: 16551 | Registered: Feb 2003
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posted
If this guy isn't going to hire you because he wants a buddy to Monday morning quarterback with, then you're probably better off not getting the job anyway. Hard to get anything accomplished when your coworkers and bosses are chit-chatting all around you.
In the future, if it were to come up, I'd probably say "I'm not generally a fan of professional team sports, however I do enjoy participating in <insert list here>." That may help to eliminate the assumption that you're a couch potato that zones into reality TV whenever you're home simply because you don't follow whatever team he likes.
Posts: 4515 | Registered: Jul 2004
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quote:Originally posted by Goody Scrivener: If this guy isn't going to hire you because he wants a buddy to Monday morning quarterback with, then you're probably better off not getting the job anyway. Hard to get anything accomplished when your coworkers and bosses are chit-chatting all around you.
In the future, if it were to come up, I'd probably say "I'm not generally a fan of professional team sports, however I do enjoy participating in <insert list here>." That may help to eliminate the assumption that you're a couch potato that zones into reality TV whenever you're home simply because you don't follow whatever team he likes.
I might try that!
Ugh, reality tv. I think I'd rather watch sports.
Posts: 3134 | Registered: Mar 2005
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posted
Hi, I'm Belle, I'm a woman and I love sports.
I love participating in sporting activites (playing touch football with the kids, volleyball at church, shooting hoops) and I love watching them.
Last night my oldest daughter and I gathered in front of the TV for some mother/daughter bonding over the Duke/Kent St. basketball game (Go Blue Devils!) and she had on the Cameron Crazie t-shirt I got her for her birthday.
My middle daughter is a competitive athlete, and my son wants to play baseball this spring. I love sports, all kinds, and I'd much rather watch a sporting event on tv than most shows out there.
Posts: 14428 | Registered: Aug 2001
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posted
One thing that I've enjoyed since I divorced and my son left for college is NOT having sports on TV all the time.
Not that I don't enjoy the occasional football game, but I never really CARED about any of the games. And when it wasn't football, it was basketball, baseball, NASCAR, hockey or golf. I golfed a bit when I was in school, and I enjoyed it all right, but watching??? Talk about televised chloroform!
I LOVED watching my children participate in sports. My son ran track in junior high, and played football and wrestled in high school. My daughters ran track, played basketball and wrestled. But you'll never see me watching any televised sports unless it's at a superbowl or world series party.
Posts: 2069 | Registered: May 2001
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posted
I've never had my total lack of sports interfere with my getting a job, but I've had numerous co-workers over the years who have taken great delight in asking me if I knew who was playing in the next big game, or what sport that big game was a part of, or whathaveyou and witnessing my ignorance (and indifference). I'm quite the novelty for most of them.
It's also not uncommon for coworkers who know that I have no interest in sports to try to give me blow by blow accounts of games, as though that will somehow convert me.
Posts: 16059 | Registered: Aug 2000
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In the future, if it were to come up, I'd probably say "I'm not generally a fan of professional team sports, however I do enjoy participating in <insert list here>." That may help to eliminate the assumption that you're a couch potato that zones into reality TV whenever you're home simply because you don't follow whatever team he likes.
So you're not a couch potato if you're watching sports on TV? Gee, if only I'd known I could get fit and muscular by watching sports, maybe I wouldn't need to go to the gym.
Posts: 4655 | Registered: Jan 2002
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quote:My name is Stephan, I'm a man, and I don't like sports
Dude, welcome to Hatrack. You're in the majority, enjoy it.
HA!
I was asked in an interview what I did in my spare times and I said,
"Video Games, Movies, Books, Write Music."
I got hired and my coworker is a nerd engineer who plays EVE Online. We always have plenty to talk about and my boss watches Battlestar Gallactica. Working for the software marketing guys was a REALLY good decision on my part.
Posts: 14316 | Registered: Jul 2005
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posted
Maybe when I run my own agency I'll put up a sign that says, "Nerds only, jocks need not apply".
Posts: 3134 | Registered: Mar 2005
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posted
I know someone that "modified" a golf cart during his summer job at a course so he could effectively perform doughnuts in the parking lots.
Posts: 3486 | Registered: Sep 2002
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quote:In the future, if it were to come up, I'd probably say "I'm not generally a fan of professional team sports, however I do enjoy participating in <insert list here>."
I'd refine this by just saying "SCUBA diving, skydiving, hiking, swimming, boating, jogging, playing poker, bowling, and shooting pool."
I generally don't tell people what I don't do in an interview, unless it's related to the work. (e.g., "I don't do PowerBuilder").
Posts: 26071 | Registered: Oct 2003
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In the future, if it were to come up, I'd probably say "I'm not generally a fan of professional team sports, however I do enjoy participating in <insert list here>." That may help to eliminate the assumption that you're a couch potato that zones into reality TV whenever you're home simply because you don't follow whatever team he likes.
So you're not a couch potato if you're watching sports on TV? Gee, if only I'd known I could get fit and muscular by watching sports, maybe I wouldn't need to go to the gym.
Nah, then you're a couch potato who likes watching sports Posts: 4515 | Registered: Jul 2004
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That's because curling isn't a sport. It's housekeeping on ice.
Curling is what made me rework my definition of sports which used to be "anything you play with a ball and/or is in the Olympics." Once they added curling, I can't use the second part of that sentence anymore.
Posts: 14428 | Registered: Aug 2001
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I was the first guy in my high school class to earn my varsity jacket (two varsity sports letters) and competed on academic decathlon. What the heck clique is THAT? I never did figure that one out...
Posts: 4112 | Registered: May 2001
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quote:Originally posted by Belle: Curling is what made me rework my definition of sports which used to be "anything you play with a ball and/or is in the Olympics." Once they added curling, I can't use the second part of that sentence anymore.
Of course, your definition now includes jacks and excludes hockey.
Posts: 16059 | Registered: Aug 2000
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quote:I was the first guy in my high school class to earn my varsity jacket (two varsity sports letters) and competed on academic decathlon. What the heck clique is THAT? I never did figure that one out...
I did that too O_O
...oh, and I totally forgot about Bartley's. How can that happen!?
Posts: 14745 | Registered: Dec 1999
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quote:I was the first guy in my high school class to earn my varsity jacket (two varsity sports letters) and competed on academic decathlon.
My jacket was a piece of work,and imagine my too-long last name in calligraphy strewn across the back. I'm dripping in sweat because I went to high school in Southern California and it's never cool enough to warrant such a heavy jacket. Good times. What a world.
posted
I wonder if it's a thing about getting old. I always hated 'team' sports as a kid. I've always loved cycling and at uni I did loads of rock climbing and mountian biking.
However now I find I love watching any sport. Football(soccer) (I'm a season ticket holder for the local team), rugby, winter sports (esp. biathlon), and best of all cricket - truly the sport for the professional loafer.
See you in the terraces!
Posts: 892 | Registered: Oct 2006
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quote:Originally posted by rivka: No, it lacks a ball.
A puck is a flattened ball.
I love sports, sports of all kinds. Moreso the watching than the doing. Until I went to college I really wasn't that way, either. I always hated that my dad watched a lot of sports. Then something kicked in and I became just like him with the sports watching. I am fortunate I live in a great sports town, most nights there is some kind of game on to watch. And then I listen to sports talk all day. Big big sports fan.
Posts: 1042 | Registered: Jan 2001
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quote:Originally posted by Belle: Curling is what made me rework my definition of sports which used to be "anything you play with a ball and/or is in the Olympics." Once they added curling, I can't use the second part of that sentence anymore.
But then what about Badminton? It doesn't involve a ball. Would you consider that to be a sport?
My definition of sports: Any game that you can play to win, requires a reasonable amount of physical effort and is appealing to spectators.
But basically I tend to just call it a game. It helps to avoid a lot of confusion.
some other definitions of sport:
* An athletic competition that is objectively scored. source: Urban Dictionary * 1 a : a source of diversion : RECREATION b : sexual play c (1) : physical activity engaged in for pleasure (2) : a particular activity (as an athletic game) source: Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary * 1. a. Physical activity that is governed by a set of rules or customs and often engaged in competitively. b. A particular form of this activity. 2. An activity involving physical exertion and skill that is governed by a set of rules or customs and often undertaken competitively. 3. An active pastime; recreation. source: Free Online Dictionary
And just as an interesting sidetrack;
Sport : an individual exhibiting a sudden deviation from type beyond the normal limits of individual variation usually as a result of mutation especially of somatic tissue source: Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary which is apparently the meaning of the word sport within the scientific sphere of Biology... Posts: 993 | Registered: Jul 2006
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