Letters from 2013
7 Jan 13
Subject: Sports Suck
Sports really fucking Suck, and the fan(atics) suck even more. This is coming from someone everyone would assume would love sports; a big tough construction worker who lives hard.
I do love sports, just the kind of sports one does to keep fit or which challenges oneself. There's nothing wrong with a game of softball on the weekends, throwing a Frisbee around, or any activity like that were a little fun competition is part.
I just HATE organized sports, professional sports, and especially collegiate sports.
Sports as we know them have no business in an environment supposedly geared for higher education. Sports has damaged the university system incredibly.
Look, I played football on a league championship high school football team. I never bonded with the guys the way most of them bonded with each other. I left the school where I played football because there would be no way for me to escape having to play football and being around those lame-ass closet homos any other way.
I loved riding my bike, skateboarding, and surfing---for pleasure only. I never clicked in with any of the competitive nonsense, other than competing against myself to become better at my pleasures..
Not to offend anyone reading who may be gay, it's just that I am not. I can tell you that some serious homosexual behaviors were going on with some players, especially in the showers after practice or games. I refused to shower with those weirdos. I didn't understand the homo touching or staring at each others nude bodies. I could care less what they were but to everyone at the school they were anti-homosexual tough guys.--yeah, sure they were. I guess judging by what I saw, if half of men aren't gay, they must be heavily bi-curious.
That all explains why so many of them enjoy watching men in tights running around playing with balls. I guess this is a safe way for them to partake in their fantasies through voyeurism, hiding their true loves from their friends--who also are probably doing the same.
Anyway, all that aside, I know that sports has damaged society in many ways. This sports culture is idiotic and a total waste of life. If it weren't for this looney love of sports I wonder how much further mankind could have advanced?
Then again, this fascination of sports is just part of the evolutionary psychology of man. Men have always engaged in practice warfare, but as where with becoming adept at fencing in the 14th century may have saved your life in the mean streets of Europe, gobbling triple cheese pepperoni pizzas chased down with gallons of beer is just preparing you for a lazy chair--rending you both worthless and weak. Thanks to the media and their promotion of the endless cycle of professional sports they have multiplied the problem by thousands.
-Jim
9 Jan 13
Subject: I hate Sports...
Hello Everyone!
I have another reason to hate sports! I put in a friend request while on FaceBook and was denied by the person because I told her I didn't like sports! She said that I was unamerican because I didn't like the NFL! She asked me why I didn't like the NFL and I told her that athletes make too much money and all they do is cry about not getting an extra million! She put in capital letters..."You lose! TTYL Bitch!" I calmly said; "Awe...and we were so close to being friends and now I'm devastated...NOT!"
Personally, I'm glad that she didn't friend me! Closed minded people aren't worth my time!
Thanks for having this site! I feel at home here!
Sincerely,
Wayne White
14 Jan 13
Subject: SPORTS SUCK!!!!!!!!!!!
Hello,
As you can see, I've disguised the subject line, to say sports suck. My true opinion is that sports are one of the greatest things invented by man. They get you fit, they provide entertainment, and they bring countries together in events such as the olympics and world cup, providing a sense of national pride. Some people have said that organized sports take it a little too far and are too competitive, and while this may be true in some instances, it certainly is not the case every time. A little competition is healthy. It motivates people to do well in life, not just in sports. If you're still not believing me at my last comment there, think of it this way. There's probably just as much competition when you go for a job interview as there is in any organized sport. If you do not know how to handle competition and/or intense pressure, you will crack, and not get the job. As I've just demonstrated, sports can give an edge in the work world, but they can also do so much more.
Sports can also bring people closer together. This is true in events like the olympics and world cup, when the entire country, in many cases, the world, comes together for those two or so weeks. This, however, can also happen on a much smaller scale. The competition mentioned above, that occurs in many sports can get people to work together as a team, and bond. Actually, I've met many of my good friends from sports teams.
Finally, and probably the most important thing about sports, is that it keeps you fit. Fitness is an essential part of life, no matter if you are a competitive, pro athlete, or just somebody who goes jogging on the weekends, and I'm sure that everyone, no matter who they are, or what physical ability they have, can agree on this.
So, sports haters, I hope you've managed to get through my short rant. I will now end off on a quote from one of my favourriate sports coaches.
"Quit you're whining, and get out there!"
Really, unless you have a debilitating disease, that prevents you from doing any physical movement at all, you can participate in sports/physical exercise. So what if you were bullied in high school because you sucked at sports, or were called a nerd because you couldn't make the football team. SO F***'n What??????? Just move on, and try it those days are long gone.
Good bye and good day.
TPR fan
15 Jan 13
Subject: Response To TPR fan
Response to TPR fan:
Firstly I wonder why your entire letter is not coloured blue as many similar letters in the past using almost identical language and arguments have been. I also don't see why it is that you have used the heading "Sports Suck" to draw attention to your own letter as this gives me the impression that you were unable to construct an intriguing title for your letter. I am not here to harass you or tell you you're nothing but an ignorant sports fan but I would to address your comments.
You mention "Healthy Competition" and then compare the competition in sports to that of going for a job interview. The competition in sports involves highly intense personalities who will give anything in the world to see a team win, while in a work place competitive people may exist but they are not going to walk into the everyday office with sports equipment and begin challenging other employees to a game. Sport is competition at its most extreme form and in my opinion that can be unhealthy and damaging to other people as it often involves insults and harrasment. Sport cannot be compared to other competitive activities as they are often tamer and don't involve corrupt sportsmen. I myself have entered artistic competitions that have been free of the ridiculous aggression I have witnessed on so many occasions.
Sports only brings other sports fans together but tears others apart. I can't tell you how many times in my life I have been unable to associate with other people because they were unable to accept my lack of interest in sport. There are so many occasions where sporting events have lead to over the top arguments and violence.
Sport can keep you fit, but it's not the only option. Many people on this website including myself have turned to alternative methods to keep themselves in good physical condition. Sport and exercise are two entirely different things, this is a mistake many sports fans make and some believe that all people on this website are overweight and mentally scarred individuals who are unable to recover from high school bullying. You quote one of your favourite sport coaches "Quit you're whining, and get out there!". This is the type of people that have been the source of misery for me for many years, coaches like this are often extreme and dehumanise team members in order to reach their goals. You expect people to get over previous difficult experiences in order to enjoy sport again. Many people have, but their attitude toward sport is understandably bitter and hostile. I accept the trauma I have and will go through being ridiculed by other people as a result of my disinterest in sport, but I will never change my mind not only because of past events but because of my lack of interest in sport altogether. You may love sports yourself, that doesn't bother me in the slightest but your incorrect assumptions on many issues are typical and offensive. What really bothers me is your intolerance to people like myself. I am not the high school nerd stereotype you might expect, but am interested in artistic activities that don't resemble sport in the slightest.
Tim
18 Jan 13
Subject: So very very disillusioned!!!
At one time, I was a big sports fan. I was able to spout off statistic after statistic at will. In recent years, though, I became more & more aware of scandal after scandal happening in the world of sports. It's like whenever some athlete comes along who really really excels in their chosen sport, you have to take what he or she does with a whole lot of suspicion. Ranging from some sports star gambling to taking some performance-enhancing drug or drugs, how in the hell can anything they do be believed!? Anymore, beyond some Pop Warner or Little League baseball game, I will not believe the sincerity of any sports star, regardless of his or her chosen sport. Pro sports has, in my opinion, gone totally bust!!! What a letdown!!!
Lester
20 Jan 13
Subject: I have absolutely no use for sports
Why would anyone waste time, money or our precious unrenewable oil/fuel resources just to drive 500 miles or even more to watch a stinkin boring ball game? I've never in my life even watched 5 min of a ball game not even on Tv. I just don't understand why/how so many individuals could be so dim in the head as to think a ball game is even worth mind energy it takes to keep up with a score much less holler and cheer out loud about something so stupid.
I can think of many other free activities that give you plenty of exercise while still learning something that might actually be useful in the future. Hiking the mountains is free and peacefull no yelling, no ticket to get in. Just grab your best pair of boots and head for the hills. Carry a gun if it's hunting season, if you see a snake shoot it just cause it's a snake, if you see a deer shoot it to eat and feed your family. If you dont see anything beside pretty clouds or a nice sunset at the end of the day, at least you havent been stuck up 10,000 other peoples asses. Or stuck sitting in a chair in front of the tv watching a game and smelling each others bad breath and farts.
Damn I hate ball games and all the damn idiots on the road headed to a ball game with those dumb flags in their car windows that are usully in my way on the hwy when I trying to work hauling cars with my wrecker truck and actually make a living. Keep your dumb sports watching asses at home and have sex with each other and save the fuel for something else people. OMG I could go on all nite but it wouldn't do any good, it's amazing how peoples minds are attracted to something so useless and expensive at the same time. My Name is Derek Smith and I approve this message..Good day
22 Jan 13
Subject: I hate sports
I hate all kind of sports. They are boring seeing assholes running back and forth doing the same shit.
Andy=
23 Jan 13
Subject: Sports, A Waste Of Money
I have a question. How come the people who apply highly advanced mathematics to create video games, which stimulate the economy in ways you can't imagine, such as Let's Plays, bring joy to nerds, and worked so hard video games are recognized as art, make on average, $90,000 a year?
Doctors who save lives, cure diseases, and put broken and damaged lives back together. And most of their patients got injured playing sports, and the doctors who cure them only make $100,000 a year.
Theoretical Physicists use the most complex math, explain things our brains are not capable of thinking of, and use equations such as String Theory to try to go to another universe only make $90,000 a year. In the future the universe will be uninhabitable, and humans will go extinct, unless they succeed in getting us to another universe, if they succeed they will have saved the human race. Yet at the current pace, fast as it is, we are not getting closer. The education system doesn't teach about these important things, the education systems teaches how to catch a ball.
These people make only around $100,000 a year, it's a lot, but they deserve more. And people who hit a piece of rubber with a piece of wood make millions. Why?
V
1 Feb 13
Subject: Sports is a corporate circus.
Please publish my views on your website. I will be grateful for that.
Sports is complete Bull Shit which people watch and talk about day after night and waste their precious time and energy. Earlier I couldnt understand how is it that there is something known as professional sports ( ie an individual spending his life kicking a ball or hitting one. ) and how come these sports persons get so much media attention and they are projected as Icons and idols , who everyone should follow. I just couldnt grasp the foolishness of the great majority of people who were obsessed with men kicking a ball around. So I did a bit of research and found that Mega-corporations own and sponser these sports channels , sports teams and tournaments. Its they who benefit from it. Average people spend their hard earned money to fill the bank accounts of billionare corporate owners. So basicaly its all a big business in which the people have been decieved to induldge in, through clever marketing techniques applied by the mass media as even Mega corporations own and control the media.
Sports is used to distract people from real issues like Disinvestment , GMO foods , FDI , increased surveiliance , UID , Free trade , The economic imperealism by IFI's IMF and World Bank , Inflation in prices , deregulation , privatization of nations industry , weak legislative , judiciary, executive systems , SEZ , Currency markets , Stock and commodity exchanges , UN Agenda 21 , Central bank with their fiat currency , children being hypersexualized , greusome wars , horrific poverty etc. People are so obsessed with sports ,they never think , discuss , question , analyse and debate real issues and most or should I say all of these real issues involve these mega corporations. Thats why a massive web of sports mind control have been spun by the Elite spider which has trapped the minds of the unsuspecting public.
Even the mainstream media is corporate owned as I mentioned previously. Media markets sports well by giving it excessive coverage and over exaggerating the reasons why we should watch sports. These sports players are made celebrities so that they can be used to sell products of these corporations through advertising. Another use of these fake hereos ie sports players is that they can be used by corrupt polticians for image making purposes. Sports is a corporate circus created by the ruling elite to distract and capture the minds of the scum at the bottom. So that they never wake up and fight the corrupt system and the poor stays poor and the rich gets richer. Even the Elite futurist and famous writer H.G Wells wrote on this subject and explained how there will be arenas all across the world and people will be distracted by Sports. Which is nothing but trivia.
-- Thank you - Lance
1 Feb 13
Subject: Sports is for idiots
Idiots watch sports. They imagine that they are the people who are playing on t.v. Sport fans remain in this fantasy land. It gives them the falls illusion of power. My advice to these sports fan is to seek power in real life by working hard. Watch the amazing 5 minute documentry at youtube called the high five. It exposes sports negative effects on society.
M.
4 Feb 13
Subject: Super Sunday
The score for Stupid Bore Sunday?
A couple good movies pulled off the shelf.....No Charge
A big plate of Mexican take out...............7 Bucks
Completely missing the Big Game...............Priceless !!!
Everybody have a good week.
Smith
5 Feb 13
Subject: The StuporBore
Yet again, I can say with some satisfaction that StupidBore Sunday passed me by. At our house, we live in a sportsless universe.
I heard later that the power failed at the stadium during the game, and the whole place was plunged into darkness! HA! Did somebody forget to drop a quarter in the meter? What a gaggle of tossers. Perhaps they ought to have gone home and done something less silly instead.
Stephen
9 Feb 13
Subject: Magazine Article
By the way, did anyone read the article in the December 2012 Reader's Digest about chronic brain injury due to football? Just one more reason to finally ban it completely. Here's a link:
http://www.rd.com/true-stories/football-safety-why-i-broke-up-with-the-sport/
It's worth the time to read through. The author has other articles on the same subject on the Sports On Earth website. I imagine he's a rather unpopular fellow in some quarters. Kudos to him for standing up and telling the truth.
Smith
15 Feb 13
Subject: Soccer
In England this game is usually called football, but for our American readers I'll say soccer, as football tends to mean American football, an amusing spectacle that people laugh at over here, but rarely take seriously as in its home country. However, soccer is the opposite, to challenge a soccer fan about why he wastes a huge amount on watching a game on cable television or some team that sees ripping him off as a kind of sport, why a 0-0 draw is worthy of 95 minutes of his time, why he hates non fans and why such a game is so important to him is more or less equivalent to accusing him of having a relationship with his granny. This game, which is played by greedy berks who earn £ 200, 000 a week, who see cheating, diving, spitting and timewasting as sporting, is rather like the telescreen in the novel 1984, it is almost impossible to avoid nowadays and the telescreen in a bar can never be switched off when a game is on, which seems like all the time. I'm sure pubs must be losing money as non fans don't want to turn up to have this borefest inflicted on them for up to six hours a day, or listen to fans rabbit on about some player as if he is some kind of god, but would probably tell them to f!"£ off in the street.
It wasn't always this way. Until the arrival of Sky Sports about 20 years ago, soccer was strictly rationed to Saturday afternoons with no live games allowed, television only showed highlights and scores and the only live games were a few internationals and Sunday afternoon matches. Actually things seemed better then as the sport was a sideshow, which is all it really is, and a cheap diversion for men and boys on a Saturday. Now sadly, like American sports, it is a massive business where billions change hands in television rights, wages and image rights, it has moved way beyond a Saturday pastime and become a monster where games are televised almost every day of the week, where fans are brainwashed into believing the game is the only thing in their lives, non fans are either driven out of bars or conversations, or like me for a while try to compromise, only to realise these people often have nothing else in their lives, anything intellectual, different, or non soccer related is treated with complete scorn, and then realise you can't compromise with them. ( Even other sports are regarded as somehow lesser interests, the idiots were even moaning about the season being delayed for the Olympics, a far worthier event than any soccer tournament).
However, I think the tide is turning, the greed, arrogance and criminality of many players is making people ill, the overkill of a once special sport in this country is making even some fans bored now, and I know of six people who have said never again and turned their backs on soccer. Hopefully this game will retreat to what it once was, a Saturday afternoon diversion for its fans, and not some 24/7 monster that's out of control.
GLENN AN ENGLISHMAN.
17 Feb 13
Subject: soccer
i read glens letter with interest .Being a sport hating scouser has always made me an outsider in my native Liverpool but it did have compensations . Firstly ive always been very popular with women because they generally hate sport too . The so called WAGs that surround the game dont like it either ; they like money . If footballers were paid what they deserve most would still be virgins . We have a prime example in David Beckham . He always been a nice lad but he can kick a ball and thats it . Without football he would be lucky to get a job stacking shelves in Walmart [Asda over here] .Everybody concedes that he is pretty thick . He is good looking but is let down by a pipsqueek voice and an empty head .
Money is the driving force behind soccer . As Glen pointed out Sky started it .Once it was seen how easy it was to drain money from the fans it grew like a cancer . there used to be just 2 competitions in the UK , the FA Cup and the league championship . These were added to so that now there are Cups galore being being competed for sucking even more money out of the punters wallets . It was also noted that the punters got very exited about BIG games when top teams played each other . Big business found this too hit and miss and so the premiership league was formed . Now every game was a BIG game and VITAL matches proliferated . Local teams used to have local players but that was no longer good enough .In order to make the big bucks and stay in the premiership they started to buy players from all over the world for ludicrous amounts of money .Naturally costs were passed on to the sheeplike fans and ticket prices skyrocketed . The average British male now spends a massive amount of his disposable income on supporting his team in one way or another . The economy is in recession and nobody seems to see the relationship . When the world cup was on my business takings were down £5000 and i regularly lose money when a BIG game is on . Other small businesses tell similar tales .
i will end my rant here but will come back to it another time
john
28 Feb 13
Subject: my remarks on PE education
Hi,
thank you very much for presenting the problem of sport education in schools. It is also painfully present in Poland (although not so much, in many opinion, in higher education). There are so many things that could be done differently, to provide students with good sports experience. And it would not take much effort. For example the problem you mentioned about being picked up for teams. You could for example draw lots or something like that. Still could you hear "O no! Not you again!", but it would be better than being explicitly left last every single time.
I also think too much attention is paid to team sports in general. Everything would be ok if everyone treated this like a good fun, but it is not the case. You feel the pressure of your team, you feel sorry for not being perfect, you pray for not getting the ball (but still you feel strange when you never do). One of the girls in my class said she does not like people who are not good a sports. Just like that. There were no other personal values that were important. But I think it is good she stated it clearly (although not to me in person), so I knew what kind of person I deal with.
I also felt my personal health was threatened because we played in a relatively small gym with boys who sometimes kicked the soccer ball very very hard (we had very small classes in private school and thus we had PE together with boys). One time they broke the goal frame that was made of metal just by kicking the ball on it. What would happen if this was my head? They would never hurt me on purpose but they never were careful enough and teacher did not felt there is a need to react distinctly.
Sometimes I wish I was back to school (!) for a day of two because I could see it everything different now and I would like to expose all the absurdities to my teachers and students. For example vaulting horse jumping (present every year in Polish schools). I would now say to my teacher: "You tell my to jump over this unstable thing, just after my friend didn't manage to do it right and fell on her nose and she's still crying? No way! What does it have to do with beneficial physical development of our bodies any way? We spend the whole lesson waiting in the queue and jump only three or four times. I think I burnt more calories because of fear than of exercise today. On the next day we will get the grade for it. Is this fair? What can the weaker students do to get a better grade? They can't exercise at home just like with Math or any other subject!".
I found out there are sports I like: badminton, table tennis, aerobics, dance. In all these sports you are not able to get hurt by other people so easily. They emphasise personal development but still you can enjoy contact with others. Doing them on PE lessons could have let me loose some weight, build my self-esteem. But I was never given a change to try. I left the school thinking I suck at all sports and that it is something wrong. What does it have to do with holistic development of young people?
Greetings,
(please print the letter anonymously).
PS. Last year my country held EURO 2012. My city spend a lot of money on building a great stadium. Today I read they do not have means to provide accommodation to an unemployed couple that is expecting a baby soon and lives on the corridor of the block of flats. I think there is something wrong with that.
2 Mar 13
Subject: Ugh -sports
Yes! I'm not alone. Glad I found your website. I thought we were the only ones that didn't watch the Stupid Bowl. I don't like how it is embedded in us at a young age to compete against each other. Another reason we think sports suck is because we know its used for mass distraction. Vital issues go unnoticed but everyone knows the score of a dumb meaningless game. Anyway, I like your site and wanted to say hi and thank you.
Sincerely,
Jessica
@messicakes
7 Mar 13
Subject: The Failure of the American Culture.
Dear Sports Sucks.org,
In all regards your group is a most wonderful creation. You fight for freedom and liberty among the intellectual elite. A battle that I am glad to call myself an officer in, for I am glad to see that finally someone has had the courage to start such a wonderful movement. It has been awhile since I last set eyes on such a movement so allow me to introduce myself. I am Professor Kattkin, I major in social behaviors and social sciences.
In all my studies I have seen that the ever fruitful ‘strongman’ has been an icon of valor and bravery. This is however not the case in today’s modern society. Today the strongman takes out his anger on his spouse and or children. One of the worst offenders of these horrific displays is in American Football players.
And yet here they are. The icons of America, teaching our children what is ‘right’ and what is ‘wrong’. I ask of you who read this letter, “Do you think we should have such overpaid barbarians teaching morals to our youth?”
It is unfortunate that many Americans obsessed with the sport will continue to say “yes.” It has been researched that high school athletes have a higher chance of cheating on a test than any other major grouping. Where do you think they get the idea of cheating? From the coaches of course.
“You have to win at all costs, win, win, WIN!” Is what I hear them say. This over competiveness in such repetition will lead to the athletic student to a very skewered sense of morality. They will believe that even life is a competition. This is a very unhealthy look on the world.
I implore you all that there is no need for such thinking. Everything is not a game that is to be won. There are people in the world, not just players. There are no teams, rules or plays about it. Life is life, not something that you can go and mess with.
Yours,
Professor Kattkin.
19 Mar 13
Subject: Sports, a Waste of Money, Part 2
I live in Canada. That means everyone is oppressed (I used that word on purpose) by hockey. I think it is the worst sport ever, but a smart British person would say soccer is the worst sport, and a smart American person would say football is the worst sport. Here, in Canada, it's hockey. My parents have to take my brother to his stupid hockey games almost everyday. It costs thousands of dollars (which would be fine if something good came out of it, but nothing good comes out of hockey) and before every practice he complains about going. He thinks he doesn't need practice. Why? Because our parents always tell him "You can get into the NHL" but they have told me that he can't. My family has told me they don't want him to make it, because it's too dangerous. Players have died on the ice, look it up in YouTube. Then after an athlete gets a conclusion, everyone hates him, and calls him "weak". You have to be very strong not to die from those hits. And they call them weak… The worst part, is that after that 'athlete' somewhat recovers, because you can never truly recover, he goes back into that place where he nearly died. The idiots…
V
19 Mar 13
Subject: right on
I agree with everything you wrote on your site, keep up the good work.
Here's an idea for one more item for your "boycott" part of the site to add -
DON'T watch any stupid hollywood movie that glorifies highschool/college sports! (and there are many of them)
S
24 Mar 13
Subject: I'm not a sports fan but...
I'm not a sports fan but...
I do believe that college athletes should be paid what they're worth. I
don't care what it costs the University to secure the best players.
These young athletes risk getting injured every day. The injuries could
haunt them for the rest of their lives and even make them a ward of the
state. I certainly don't want them to become a tax burden on the state.
More than likely, the Universities will get tired of footing the bill to
pay for a bunch of jocks and will axe the programs. That way these
starving athletes will have to become a professional.
As to professional athletes: make the games as dangerous as possible.
Allow mixed martial arts and spikes. A player that can make it through
an entire season will be a veteran. That will allow more college
athletes to become professionals. I'm not concerned about sports safety.
I'm more interested in making these mind numbing sports more
interesting. Just think: each team will have new athletes each season.
No more will you have to endure familiar names season after season. No
more will you see the same old tactics used to score points. No more
will all of the players just get up and brush themselves off after a
pile up. The list of players will change each play. The ambulance
industry will pick up and more people will go to school to become an EMS.
"Die for the team", will be the new motto.
Jim
31 Mar 13
Subject: Just a thought
Professional Sport is society's self-inflicted Lobotomy.
If I was to tell you I knew a person who was playing video games for 48 hours a week would you be concerned they were addicted? Of course you would. What if it was porn and not video games? addicted! I hear you collectively shout. What if it was social media, two days a week on Facebook, twitter, etc. Society would label them Social Media addicts would they not? However if they are sitting on the couch watching Football on TV or in the car listening to Football on the radio for up to and in excess of two days a week then that is perfectly OK, by society's standards.
So how did I get to 48 hours - two days a week?
Nine games a week, at 3 hours a game | = 27 hours |
Two hour commute a day listening to football talkback radio | = 10 hours |
AFL Footy show | = 2.5 |
Before the game | = 2 |
The Sunday AFL Footy show | = 1.5 |
Game Day | = 1.5 |
Footy Classified | = 2 |
15 minutes of commercial news every night | = 1.75 |
Total of 48.25 hours of football a week.
(These are local times, however all western culture communities have similar exposure to sport.)
That does not account for Foxtel football talk shows, reruns of previous matches, online footy forms, apps, games, websites, gambling, and printed and digital media that an obsessed fan will engage in every opportunity they get. When these secondary forms of sport are ingested, an estimate of two days a week seems very conservative and could be more like three days a week.
Lets have a quick look at the effects of a physical Lobotomy and compare then to someone that watches a large amount of sport.
Patient's have a diminished ability to function independently, they will be easily lead and easily conform to a mob mentality. Same as a Sports Frenetics. Patient's show a vast reduction in initiative and inhibition, Sports Frenetic. As well as a reduction of empathy and cognitive ability. Sports Frenetic. A detachment from society will also be significant, however this will only be observed by those not suffering the same plight. Sports Frenetic. Every single person I know that watches a lot of sport is exactly like this, and frankly it's a bit scary.
For those of us that do not watch copious amounts of sport or other mind numbing rhetoric on television, this question and following scenario will resonate deeply within you.
Have you ever been in a social situation surrounded by men and the only thing they can articulately talk about is sport? I have many times. The conversation generally goes one of two ways.
# 1.
Sports Fanatic "How about that game last night… hay hay?"
Normal person "I didn't see it, I don't watch sport"
Sports Fanatic "Well what about the game last week?"
Normal person "Didn't see that one either, I find sport repetitive and boring and I have better things to do"
Sports Fanatic "So your saying you don't watch sport at all"
Normal person "Pretty much"
Sports Fanatic "So what do you do?"
Normal person "Read, keep up with current affairs, educate myself, movies, theatre, art, exhibitions. there are other things to do other than sit and watch sport eating junk-food drinking beer.”
Sports Fanatic “Like what?”
Normal person “When was the last time you researched something you where curious about, other than sport"
Sports Fanatic "Ummm I don't think I ever have"
# 2.
Sports Fanatic "How about that game last night… hay hay?"
Normal person "I didn't see it, I don't watch sport"
Sports Fanatic "What are ya a POOFDAR!!"
Normal person "So you think I'm homosexual because I don't like sport"
Sports Fanatic "Yea you must be a poof"
Normal person "Oh Ok I see. What's you favorite sport"
Sports Fanatic "AFL"
Normal person "How many teams and how many players per team in AFL?"
Sports Fanatic "18 teams and 22 a side"
Normal person "So about 400 players?"
Sports Fanatic "ok if you say so"
Normal person "How many of them could you recognize when your watching them on the TV?"
Sports Fanatic "I'd say at least 80-90%"
Normal person "OK, so I like to go the the ballet and I can recognize the principal ballet dancer from over ten Ballet Companies."
Sports Fanatic "So you like the Ballet..poof"
Normal person "So one of us can recognize ten of the most beautiful and elegant woman on the planet from 30 meters, and the other can recognize over 300 men in short shorts and gets exited by the fact he can do so"
Sports Fanatic “Yea and?”
Normal person “Now which one do your think has clinical homosexual tendencies? The male that admirers beautiful women and their ability or the one that admirers men in tight shorts?”
Sports Fanatic "Your a @#5$ &6%$….."
Normal person "Ok, nice chat"
If a person can only have an intelligent conversation pertaining to one topic, other than ones occupation. Is that not at least a little scary for the rest of society. As this pandemic of Societies self inflicted Lobotomy gathers pass at what point will it be too late to intervene? Have we already past the point of no return? How many people can name an Astronaut from this country? Or a Nobel Prize winner? However I would estimate over 90% of the population could name the Premiership team and the league's MVP for the past five years. I strongly believe the brain needs nutrition in order for it to grow and work efficiently. Nutrition in the form of stimulus, experience and education. The brain as with the body needs a verity of nutrition. If we where to eat just apples. However healthy they may be, we would soon begin to lack other nutritional needs our bodes require. The brain I believe is an extension of this premiss and if it's only stimulation other than the occupation of the individual is of only one thing, then how is that not starving the brain of the nutrition it needs to function properly. In a nutshell watching to much sport on TV makes people less intelligent and the situation is getting worse not better. Being a Y I don't know how to fix it, this is just another problem the X team is going to have to nut out. They seem to be able to distance themselves from the self inflicted Lobotomy curse. Any suggestions?
Corey
2 Apr 13
Subject: Sports
Sports are akin to Nero playing while Rome burned. This worship of sports and the players is going to contribute to the downfall of our country.
And, if I hear another organ playing on the baseball field....da ta ta ta ta ta, I am going to scream. Then there is the hypnotic droaning of the crowd permeating my home while people sit around in a stupor glued to the TV .....yada, yada, yada.
Sherry Halvorson
sherrylee@neitel.net
5 Apr 13
Subject: I told you so
As I wrote in my letter to you a few months back:
"Not to offend anyone reading who may be gay, it's just that I am not. I can tell you that some serious homosexual behaviors were going on with some players, especially in the showers after practice or games. I refused to shower with those weirdos. I didn't understand the homo touching or staring at each others nude bodies. I could care less what they were but to everyone at the school they were anti-homosexual tough guys.--yeah, sure they were. I guess judging by what I saw, if half of men aren't gay, they must be heavily bi-curious."
LOL, and I bet that this is only the beginning, I know it is. Pretty soon the few straight guys on the team will really have the need to run with those leather balls or risked getting a mouthful of swishy salty balls.
4 gay NFL players could come out on the same day, Brendon Ayanbadejo says
gay-nfl-players-announcment-brendon-ayanbadejo
Jim
8 Apr 13
Subject: Sports, Space and the Future of the Human Race
As a human who thinks and contemplates the world, a certain truth has become apparent to me.
In my formative years my disinterest in sports and my fascination with the big questions raised by scifi led to my assignement at the lowest possible rung of the social ladder. My my peers and adult educators were instrumental in this of course. Gym coaches took special delight in torturing me. My experiences are a microcosm of a much bigger societal problem that threatens the survival of the human race.
Modern society is stagnating and declining. Ecomnomically, ethically, and intellectually. Sports fanaticism is a driving force behind it.
Lacking real goals, winning meaningless games, watching them, selling the brand and making worthless dollars became the end goal of society. Rather than expend resources of time materials and energy in useful intellectual or practical pursuits, these are used for a sort of collective masturbation with balls.
Space exploration is widely viewed by Joe sixpack as a waste of money. Mainly because Joe is a master of sports statistics and consumer of cheap mass produced beer. Since his dim mind is clouded with hops and memories of football glories past, he cannot grasp the importance and potential of the new frontier. He knows joe nameth's career touchdown stats, but doesn't know his planet is third from the sun.
Joe likes stagnation. Ignorance is a hard won bliss. He preserves it and enforces it because it's comfortable and predictable. The status quo needs no imagination, no risk and no thought. It's safe and easy. Sports make stagnation entertaining. They are a sort of pretend struggle for survival with pretend courage for people living dull lives without real purpose.
All those millionaires chasing balls and all their dollars and the team spirit and drive can be exterminated by common cosmological events along with the entire species.
It is obvious that human colonization of space is the next step and the only way to guarantee our survival as a species. Our planet is too fragile. The needs of our civilization can't be met by it anymore. The environment is degrading from the consumerist corporate culture which is intrinsically linked with and supported by sports culture.
The promulgation of the sports culture also leads to socially sidelining some of humanities best minds the very people who are our best hope for engineering survival technologies like cheap reliable access to space, breakthroughs in medicine and recycling. How many geniuses have commited suicide because they were hounded to death by athletes?
Sports offers nothing towards any goal but its own spread. It is obstructive and antagonistic towards any other, including those that support the long term survival of the species. Which is why sports and sports fanaticism the caste system, and mercantilism surrounding it, must be stamped out for all time. Advancement of the human race requires it.
Scott
19 Apr 13
Subject: The End Is Near
The end is near, after ten long years of suffering from the corrupt school P.E program I can see the light at the end of the tunnel. After this year, I will have completed compulsory P.E and it then becomes optional. I still have to participate in our school sports program which may lead to a few tragedies but by then, I don't think I will care. I can finally take confidence in knowing it's all going to be over and that sport, simply isn't for me.
Making people who aren't interested participate in sporting activities is like making people who are extremely nervous and inadequate in front of a crowd do stand up comedy. It's something that can really only be accomplished if you want to do it and nobody can make you interested. While some may argue that sport is similar to all of the other subjects in school and we can simply say "some subjects you will like, others you will not but you still have to try your hardest and participate in all of them" sport is very different. It is a non-academic subject and everybody knows that Maths/Science/English have higher priority then sport in schools.
Sport is humiliating for those who lack the skill and exhilarating for those who don't. The two are often against each other because of the pure disgust that the sport lovers feel, it bothers them greatly how inefficient another person is at sport. While my experience could have been much more emotionally painful if I was to go to an all boys high school which would be unbearable, it doesn't overrule the fact that there are some long-term emotional effects that have been caused by other people's disapproval. I find it very hard to participate in any sporting activity and cannot help trying to avoid sport at all cost. Even if I wanted to give something a go, I feel some part of me stop that from happening, like a reflex. I am automatically hesitant. this is the result of years of failing in front of others. I do not have a negative attitude at all about what I have gone through but a very positive one.
I hope my story can inspire others who are still struggling, who are having a very hard time coping with the way school sport undermines and attacks confidence, damages popularity and enables unfair judgement from others. It's important to remember that the way things are today are not right and although people rarely speak of it, there is a general awareness that some kids find school hard to handle because they do not fit the male stereotype of having a basic interest and understanding of sport. While many of my letters here refer to school sport education, I also have an established point of view about sport in society and on TV. I never watch any sport programs on TV whether it be games, news or related shows. I don't take the slightest interest in sport gossip whether it relates to a local team or a national one. I refuse to participate in the entire charade and while some may disagree, I believe I have the right to not take an interest in sports.
I hate AFL and find it incredibly tedious as well as any other sport. I live in Australia and it really annoys me when some idiot news reporter will say "we love our sport" "or Australians just can't get enough of sport" why should they speak for an entire nation? They haven't met me yet. I guess I can't be one-hundred percent certain but I would say the worst is over. I recall a few scarring memories back from my first year of high school, that was when things we're really bad. I dreaded sport more then ever and had to face ridiculous criticism. If anybody else out there is being ridiculed by others because a lack of interest or ability in sport, just remember that sport isn't for you and the people who are giving you a hard time are probably terrible at some or if not all of the things you like to do. It's not part of human nature to like sport, it's something that has developed on it's own. Think of it as an over-hyped hobby because that's precisely what it is.
One more thing, avoid the stereotype that all people who like sport are flawed, cruel, unfair or judgemental of others who are not interested. No harm is done in people playing sport but a huge amount of harm is done when it's not by one's free will. I'd like to thank Earl, Ray and many of the other contributors of this site, you've have helped me a great deal, I don't feel as if I'm completely isolated anymore. If others are giving you a hard time and you feel down about it, everything is going to be alright, they don't define you.
Tim
21 Apr 13
Subject: Information
Here's a clip from a British indie film from the eighties about a guy who is mercilessly bullied by the sports clique at an independent school and gets his revenge as an adult at a cricket match. Good and Bad At Games has never been released on DVD or Blu Ray, but most of the film is on You Tube. You'll love it.
Good and Bad at Games Pt. 8 (of 8)
Glenn AN Englishman.
22 Apr 13
Subject: Sports Deciding Factor for Potential Scholarship Recipients
I grew up in a nice, mid-size metropolitan area of the Midwestern United States. My graduating class was over 500 students. By the time I got to high school, most bullying had stopped…at least for me. Kids found their cliques and kept to themselves. I was just fine with this.
I currently teach at a small rural school that has just over 500 students in the whole district. Needless to say, the culture surrounding sports in this community is different than where I grew up. I have been asked to be on the scholarship committee for three of the five years I have taught at this school. My wife teaches at another rural school district in our area and has also served on their scholarship committee. When she reviews the applications, the names on the applications are blanked out. Committee members are to base decisions solely upon the quality of the application.
At my school, however, the names are NOT blanked out. Sitting in on the meetings, I can tell you that the students who get the most money are the ones who are the best athletes. So, at my wife’s school, three people could list on their application “basketball” as an extra-curricular. No one knows if those students were star players or benchwarmers. At my school, that is taken into consideration. Yes they ACTUALLY start discussing how hard (or not hard) so-and-so worked this season. I sometimes can't believe I'm sitting there listening to that...a teacher who also might be an assistant coach stating that so-and-so didn't show up to lift weights every morning at 6:00 and therefore isn't a frontrunner for this scholarship.
I LOVE the kids that I work with. I teach music which is elective in middle school and high school so I get the students who really want to be there. Many of them are athletes. Over the years I have had several students tell me that they do basketball because they have to and band because they want to. In a way, that makes me feel good that the students are coming to my class by their own free will…but sad on the other hand knowing that they could go the other way at any time and there would be absolutely no support for my program from their parents.
We have become a culture of ASS BACKWARD priorities. Something indeed needs to change.
JR
22 Apr 13
Subject: Justin Bieber bored at the basketball game
Good morning, chaps.
There have been some photos on the internet for a while of pop star Justin Bieber with his (ex?-) girlfriend, Selena, at a basketbore game. In the photos, she is excited by the spectacle, but he is bored. And rightly so. After all, can any sane person sit watching a gaggle of bollockheads chase a ball for more than thirty seconds, without going a bit doolally? I think not.
The most popular of the sneering captions attached to these photos is "Don't bring a girl to the basketball game." I'm assuming, from the tone of such derisive comments, that they are written by basketbore enthusiasts who do indeed attend the event of their poor choice without the wife or girlfriend, so that they can grunt and howl at the proceedings unhindered. It certainly follows the mindset (if such troglodytes can be said to have a mind) who think that if you dislike sports, you are less than manly. Yawn-o.
Now, I have no regard for Justin Bieber and his laughable, adolescent, manufactured "music," any more than I have for any sport, but I'll say this for him: he has enough discernment to consider basketbore a thorough snooze. Imagine if Selena had dragged him kicking and screaming to a footbore or basebore game. Perhaps she was paying him back for insisting she come to one of his concerts, when the girl would rather watch sports. Is there a difference between them? Perhaps she and her little record company puppet deserve each other.
Oh, but now look at me, gentlemen, I'm sounding bitter. It's just that, between both of the wee muppets, I don't think it's Bieber who deserves the derision. After all, as we all know, if if you have the approval of a lobotomised sports fanatic, there's something wrong - nay, sinister.
Stephen
11 May 13
Subject: Sports Are Society's Downfall
I live in London with a sporting family. My brother loves sports. My parents love sports. My grandparents love sports. I don't and nobody else understands me.
People think I'm an idiot because I think of watching someone kicking a ball as talentless and inept, which it is; but I'm not. I got 100% in two Physics exams in a row, & nobody else did as far as I know. But most people around me hate me for disinterest in whether or not Man U could beat Chelsea last Sunday, or whatever they were wasting their stupid lives doing! I just don't understand why watching someone kick a ball is crucial to them. When I began primary school, even four-year-old kids around me were competing for the greatest fitness. I tried to be "cool" by joining in as best as I could at breaktimes, but whenever I did, I would panic at the risk of getting a broken arm. I once broke it falling off a climbing frame when I was three, and it wasn't pleasant. And I just looked cowardly and was humiliated in front of muscular athletes. At PE games, I was forced onto a football pitch and just kicked the ball randomly, not knowing the rules. I asked the coach what the purpose of this was, and he yelled, "To kick the bloody ball into the net!" as if I was some social moron, and I asked why, why, why would I want to do that?
I was exercising whenever I could. I now do a martial art, so I'm not a lazy imbecile. But my parents were constantly saying, "You have to do a sport! You'll never get enough health if you don't!" Not true! I'm currently only 12 stone; not bad for someone 6'3"! Why did I have to do something utterly talentless and why did I have to waste my time kicking a ball about! It's pointless and talentless and it doesn't change my future!
I was about twelve years old when I began to realise that sports were inept. I was waiting for BBC1 to turn Wimbledon off and start Raiders Of The Lost Ark, as the schedule promised. But no. It just continued with watching Roger Useless Federer hit a ball to Rafael Boring Nadal. It made me think, why would the media waste time and money and make hundreds of channels for several different sporting events? Why would they and the government waste time and money to show hundreds of minor achievements to the public? And why do most people watch all of these people get rich from nothing more than kicking a ball? And why do they think of watching sports as normal and crucial, where it does not benefit them in the slightest? And why does it always make big news, from Usain Bolt getting close to his record to something completely random and irrelevant like David Beckham scoring 3 more goals, or some other random idiot that I never heard of doing great in his tour through Italy, or something like that.
All of those questions are rhetorical. Sports are a plague on society and the world, and I just cannot understand where the idea that watching sports is mandatory came from. Why do we do it?! It harms our world as badly as global warming!
I feel bad for the numerous children that were amongst me since I began school. In primary school and in high school, most of what I see/saw and hear(d) around me is people arguing about sports like it will end world hunger, or kill us all! It won't do anything to anything that concerns them, it'll just cost them their common sense; sports are inept. They grew up competing for who could run the fastest or kick a ball over a post properly, and that was the ruination of their sense.
I was particularly angered, however, just a few months ago, in a typical event caused by society's ineptitude. My younger brother, a keen rugby player (rugby is played in few countries; not in the US as far as I know), had been chosen for some big judgement that could make him become one of the youngest professional rugby players in the country. He came home from school one day with my mother and she said "Guess What?!" and said the whole thing. At first I thought it was a joke, and just snorted at them, before realising that this was true, and that he might join the national team one day. The shock overwhelmed me and I only just managed not to show it, and I said I was happy for him. In truth, to be frank, I was appaled. I could not stand for the idea that my brother might live to brainwash children across the globe into believing that body power is more important than intellect, but I could not say to them how I felt. What could I do?! They don't know anything about how useless sports are and would think I was being ridiculous! And if he did play worldwide, all the rugby fans from Britain, Australia, France, etc. would hate me for hating rugby!
I wish for a world without sports, where the government and the media do not globalise footage of people kicking a ball around, where grown men do not base themselves on how many goals someone scores, where people do not see it as normal to watch someone kick a ball, and where people look up to people who make worthwhile achievements, such as finding extraterrestrial life. We could have done so by now if we were not slowed down by sports; the smartest improve our world and the brainwashed hold us back.
I am glad that I found sportssuck.org, to learn that I wasn't alone, and that many of us see the light that nobody else does. And, throughout my life, I will try to spread the message: "Sports Suck!"
Thank You for reading this.
P
12 May 13
Subject: Sports is a corporate circus 2.
Sports was designed to be extensively promoted by the elite after the cultural movements of the 1960's. The elite plans the future. They have 5 , 10 , 25 , 50 and even 100 years plans. When average men become disengaged with their lives and lost power in all areas with a boss ordering them at work , traffic police at road and all kinds of authorities guideing them in all areas of their life. Men tend to seek power and would have revolted against the artificial system of ruling elite. How to counter this danger and to keep men in their place obediently ? The elite decided to over publicize and promote sports. So that men seeks illusionary success and power in their sports teams and sports stars. In reallity nothing is happening in their real lifes. A fake meaning and acheivement has been given to their lifes with the sports. In the real world average men are totaly out of picture concerning what all happens in a society , they have no say in anything happening both individualy and collectively in the world. They are unfit to participate aswell because they are clueless about real issues and know nothing apart from sports and celebrity scandals. They are in a state a perpetual childhood. I wrote an article exposing sports on my newly created blog. I expanded some more points on my previous letter Sports is a corporate circus in that article. Please read it here.
and also read What is the illuminati (ruling elite) here
thank you gentlemen ,
Lance.
13 May 13
Subject: Oh! for the hate of Sports!
Dear Sir/Madam,
Finally someone has recognized the horrors that the people who are always chosen last for the team face.
I can fully understand what you all mean and more as I was the ‘friendly artist kid’ and always watched as the popular, well known, and very athletic types were always picked first.
My most hated type of game was one that required lots of running around and chasing of other players to the teacher’s cry of “After him! Stay on your player!”
Which always resulted in me dragging my hockey-stick behind me as I walked after the ball only to stop and head in a different direction again as the ball came past at deadly speed.
True, sport may be good for you and true it might release ‘happy’ endorphins but so can many other things! Like walking or bike-riding or reading or writing or drawing!
I don’t play sport for a reason: When I was young I was scared of the ball, because of this no-one would pass it to me and because no-one passed it to me I got bored. When I got bored over time I began to not see the point of the whole game and found myself merely wandering aimlessly about the field unsure what to do with my wasted 45 minute lessons.
Also ‘self-preservation’ features in a lot of things, I don’t like getting hurt.
Thank you for letting me share my hatred of sports with you.
Yours sincerely
Clifton Macquarie
Cornerstone College
BOWDET12A@cornerstone.sa.edu.au
14 May 13
Subject: Reply to Mr. Clifton Macquarice
I read your letter and what i concluded from your letter was that you are trying to say that the people on this site and others who hate or dislike sports are the ones who couldn't excelle in it and always lacked behind other players who were better than them. Thats what makes these people hate sports its basically jealously and lack of ability to compete in that area.
Well mate i am sorry to say but you are grossly deluded. We are grown up , mature adults who have the relevant knowlegde and experience of the world and its ways. We know the truth about professional sports and why its promoted and made a huge part of the popular culture. Let me explain to you if you can rise above your sports programming and have the will to understand what i am trying to convey. Political and economic power is concentrated in the hands of a ruling elite that owns an controls transnational corporations , major communication media , Influential foundations and most public utilities , infact there power is all encompassing. The ruling elite promotes and runs the circus of sports for multiple purposes. The major one is mass distraction and to dumb you down so that major changes and important things get completely unnoticed. I mean just look out what all is happening in the world. Total surviellance and creation of police state. Do you know how many civil liberties and freedoms we have been lost under the various guises. We are being given poisnous GMO foods by agrocorporations like Monsanto , even our water is flourided , our society is corroded and broken. , children being hypersexualized , endless wars for the elites benifite. Now how can a real , serious , practical man find time for Sports can you or anyone explain ? How can one be so selfish and so narcissistic that he wants to get lost and engrossed in a world of trivia of sports and celebrity scandals, while 80% people in the world live below the poverty line and cant afford adequate food , water , shelter and clothing. A true , grown up , serious individual can never do such a thing and thats my point , Sports fans are spoiled brats , men and women who never grow up , people suffering from arrested developement , stuck in their baby phase. The sports culture is an infantilised culture. Sports is not just a tool of mass distraction and a method to take away our time and energy but also a cynical exercise in corporate branding and mass marketing. The sports stars are ridiculously overpaid for a reason only. Their faces are plastered on billboards all over the world. They are part of the "star economy" that gives enormous riches to a few while screwing over the many. Corporations relentlessly exploite people's support for their favourite team. You can get credit cards bearing the badge of your special team and you pay extra for the privilege. What do credit cards have to do with sport? Why do people fall for this kind of nonsense? Because they dont have no mind and are happy to make billionares more rich. Many men, week after week, sit around drinking beers, discussing "the game". They have an encyclopedic knowledge of all the statistics relating to their teams for the last fifty years. Yet ask them about anything important and they will stare at you blankly. The amount of energy they devote to become experts in a trivia is remarkable, as is the lack of energy they spend on doing anything significant with their lives. Thats by design aswell we are given a trivial culture to keep us in a state of mass distraction , unable to think or resist against the ruling elite and their corrupt system. The whole motivation is to keep you sedated , zombizied , stulfied , stupified and addicted to junk entertainment in the forms of sports and cheap t.v shows to ensure that you remain in your place devoid of any real knowledge , truth or power. So that you dont dedicate your life towards a social cause like fighting poverty , wars , crime etc. The elite knows it very well that a dumb down population is easy to control , manipulate and move in any direction they desire. Clifton i hope that you have got the message beyond the words and have understood that we are not kids who came last in sports making us hate it but grown up adults who know our responsibilities and that there are way bigger and better things to do in life personaly and on a societical level than to be obssesed with a circus known as Sports. Also read my article sports is a corporate circus here http://endalltyranny.wordpress.com/ 2013/03/15/ sports-is-a-corporate-circus/
if you have woken up then please get the message across to your ignoramuse sports maniac friends and try to bring them to light and in the real world. I would thank you whole heartedly for doing that.
Also Thank you sportssucks.org to allow me to share my ideas with others on your site. Its my honour and privelege.
Your lance
17 May 13
Subject: This is what sports brings
This is what sports culture promotes:
Filipe
23 May 13
Subject: Sports are OK, but the culture isn't
Here's my letter/anecdote:
Every time I log onto twitter or whatever social media, I am inundated with the literally identical fanatical posts of the fans of whatever team/game is playing. Sure, they can have their fun, and yes, I completely understand the rush and adrenaline that it brings– I myself enjoy watching a game or two, rooting for a team, and then feeling that energetic team feeling– but it is such a horrible feeling when you realize that if you do not OBSESSIVELY keep track of these games, devoting 3-6+ hours a week watching them, then you are not a normal member of this society, and are excluded from it's biggest pasttime. If games were only a few times a month, then hell yes, I would be totally fine with watching them. But they're literally every week, often twice or three times a week, and the amount of peer pressure that goes on as the bandwagon effect is being employed is ridiculous.
Personally, I feel kind of special knowing that I haven't been blindly sucked into the zombie culture that is the obsessive fanaticism of watching sports as a hobby. The various NBA or NFL organizations are the bane of this culture.
Sports, like the Olympics, where they test true athleticism at FOUR YEAR INTERVALS are amazing. These are the sports that we should be focusing on. It brings much more to the table than the "player worship" of weekly sports *cough Lebron James cough*. They are not obsessive, they do not demand you to waste your life away in front of a TV, hopelessly absorbing media and advertisement's brainwash, and they do not make you feel like a loser if you don't watch it.
The glorification of sports in schools is just another way humans express their innate elitism.
At least we know that those nerds who care about more than just the score of the last game with it's double triples or rushing layups, will be the ones who bring something meaningful to this world. Thanks to them, we are ABLE to sit on our arses all night long and worship the LED screen and the sports teams that run across it's 1080 pixels.=
Anonymous
26 May 13
Subject: A Day In The Life Of An Anti-Sportsman
I wake up on a normal day, one of a minority against the inept family who watch random hoboes make millions from pure lack of talent. There is nothing to learn from it but how society is flawed; the light that the jock never sees.
I do work. I am a student just trying his best to get good grades. This work pays off, as it has done before, as I progress through schooling easily with A's and A*'s. As I work, I am distracted, disturbed, driven mad by the sound of cheering for minor achievements. England's rugby team has scored another five points. So what?! And this achievement, is it as great as mine? And is it so worthwhile that the talentless, brain-dead sap gets cheered on by millions and makes more Pounds Sterling than he gets fans? And is it good use of time to watch this man, pay to get to a seat half a mile above him, just to see him run with a ball? So, sports fans, use time productively, and it works for you. But is this pastime productive?
Students like myself live similar lifestyles, except that they idolise people who throw balls at each other, and they progress more slowly through school, seeing a C as normal. Could they have worked harder and got something higher?
I come home on a typical day, finding my brother cheering on the team he favours. He crosses his fingers, hoping, hoping, hoping that the team beat the one he hates. He cheers. This is a big moment for him. Look at his sprint, he thinks, and his significance over others!
Life moves on afterwards. His shallow life bet on his team, which he takes on board for joy, gets him to the world he desires, changing his life in no way. If they lost, I would feel the sorrow for him that I feel for society.
The sporting cheer, at times, can go into nights afterwards. I try to sleep, and the world's social plague makes many men awaken tired later, without the energy that they could easily have conserved. The social plague not only reduces productive time, it also reduces productive energy. It is truly a plague. I lie awake and wonder, what if this did not affect us? What if time, money, energy and pointless chants were not thrown down the well and into the heart of the stadium? What if our society were free of this plague, where we were not held back by balls being thrown this way and that, and we would have got much further and found aliens. Technology in advance of ours. Minds who see what they consider to be the equivalent of their homo erectus ancestors.
Thank You for reading this.
Anonymous
29 May 13
Subject: A gentleman does not play sports
Good morning, fellow sports disdainers and gentlemen of discernment.
http://thechapmagazine.co.uk/about/manifesto/
Some of you may have heard of a magazine entitled The Chap. I have helpfully provided a link to the website of this august publication, above. It promotes something called “anarcho-dandyism,” a not-too-serious philosophy whose tenets suggest that we dress properly, instead of desecrating ourselves with such tat as jeans, athletic shoes and (horrors!) anything surmounted by a hood. I’m not writing this to promote the magazine or philosophy, but I find it very amusing and I saw something on the page behind the link that I thought might resonate with all of you.
Note, if you will, brethren, rule number eight. I refer not to the practice of eschewing athletic footwear (though it’s always advisable) but specifically to the notion that a gentleman does not play sports, except for cricket. Though, personally, I would no sooner be seen at a cricket match than at a Lady Gaga concert. One has ones principles.
Think about it, my dear fellows. Is it gentlemanly to run about aimlessly in a pair of shorts, being so intent on chasing an inflated bladder that one will boorishly elbow another chap out of the way, or even pummel him into the mud? It jolly-well isn’t. It is, let’s face it, the depth of vulgarity, not to mention loathsomely unsporting. Gadding about in shorts in front of the ladies should be the sort of thing one grows out of at the age of twelve. Doing so in order to impress them and damage another player denotes a lack of decency and self-respect, and certainly a small-minded disregard for other fellows, even if they do like sports and are therefore beneath our contempt.
This obviously goes for the ladies, too. Is it ladylike to run about, hefting a racquet? Madam, please! Once you reach adolescence, feel free to put away these childish pursuits.
This means, also, that we ought not to attend sporting events. What sort of a gentleman – or a lady - condones such activities? If enough of us avoid places where these degrading habits are otherwise encouraged, perhaps we shall make a difference. Until then, let us look blank or superior when some oik at the water cooler blathers at us about The Game. Let us sit in the pub with our backs to the wide-screen television set at which others are barking and howling – or not go there in the first place, and rather spend our money in a civilised, peaceful establishment where we can chat with our friends about matters not pertaining to such vulgarities as sports.
Remember: a gentleman does not play sports.
Stephen
1 Jun 13
Subject: In response to Stephen's letter
Interesting letter from Stephen and oh so English and I like the comments about sportswear. I am sick of seeing grossly overweight men in football shirts sweating down the High St with the name of someone like ROONEY on their back and the names of half a dozen corporations on the front and back. It looks vulgar, the people that wear these shirts are often about as athletic as a slug( although theyt claim to be experts on their sport) and their conversation revolves around football and more football. Should I see these guys in a bar, I give them a wide berth as I have as much interest in talking to them as I would to a brick wall.
Also with regard to sportswear, should I dig out the bottom half of my old judogi and walk down the street in that, as that is a form of sportswear and a vastly better and more humble sport than football. I would probably be laughed off the street and be called Daniel San or something, so better not, but it's no less idiotic than a £ 40 shirt advertising football.
With regard to football, ITV have cancelled Catchphrase for an England friendly tomorrow. Sheesh the season ended two weeks ago, but these extra matches seem to appear in summer to stop football fans taking an overdose due to withdrawal sysmptoms.
GLENN/ A N ENGLISHMAN
8 Jun 13
Subject: Typical...
Finally arrived...the 2013 football scouting report is currently making the rounds of Division 1 football coaches:
Wayfron P. Jackson:
6' 6", 215 lbs. Wide Receiver. Hottest prospect from Texas in the last ten years. Loves rap music. Will demand a mini-cassette in his helmet. Currently holds world record for the most "you knows" during an interview (62 in one minute). Wayfron can print his complete name.
Signed with Tennessee.
Quinticious Jenkins:
6' 3", 220 lbs. Running Back. Set state scoring record out of Triton High School, Dunn, N.C. Also led the state in burglaries, but has only 9 convictions. He has been clocked at 4.2 seconds in the 40 yard dash with a 19" TV under each arm.
Signed with Auburn.
Roosevelt "Dude" Dansell:
6' 1", 195 lbs. Running Back. From Tyler, Texas. Has processed hair and imitates Billy Dee Williams very well. Before he signed his letter of intent, he wanted the school to change colors to chartreuse and pink. Listed his church preference as "red brick."
Signed with the University of Houston.
Woodrow Lee Washington:
6' 8", 310 lbs. Tackle. From a 4th generation welfare family. At 19 he's the oldest of 21 children. Mother claims Woodrow and child No. 9 have same father. He has a manslaughter trial pending, but feels he will be found innocent because: "The dude said somethin' bad 'bout my Momma." On his entrance form, he listed his I.Q. as 20/20.
Signed with the University of Oklahoma.
Willie "Night Train" Smith:
6'4", 225 lbs. Quarterback. Born on an Amtrak train. Birth certificate indicates he is 27 years old. Thinks the "N" on Nebraska's helmets stands for "Nowledge," but still meets this school's stringent entrance requirements. Insists on wearing No. 32 jersey since it matches his score on his SAT's.
Signed with the University of Alabama.
Tyrone "Python" Peoples:
6'10", 228 lbs. Wide Receiver. Has a pending paternity suit and two rape trials, but hopes none of his other 9 victims will file charges. Tyrone had already signed letters of intent with six colleges. Likes wild women and red Cadillacs. Thinks Taco Bell is the Mexican Telephone Company.
Signed with University of Miami.
Abdul Hasheen Abba Ali:
6'10", 305 lbs. Guard. Played high school ball under the name Sylvester Lee Jones until he discovered religion. Abdul thinks Sherlock Holmes is a housing project in Jacksonville. Doesn't know the meaning of the word "fear." (Doesn't know the meaning of many other words, either.)
Signed with the University of Florida.
Note: College track coaches intend to use several of the above signees in their track programs. However, instead of using a starting gun at track meets, the NCAA has now agreed to use a burglar alarm.
Anonymous
10 Jun 13
Subject: Y do u have to hate sports
It's not cool I mean I'm a talented football player and a loyal fan to the New England Patriots. Why try and kick sports out of school there will be no fun in school and it is academics before sports if u have bad grades u come to practice but u can't play in the game and just because your not interested In sports doesn't mead u have to drive them out of society, we may not like your theater arts and stuff but we don't try to push them out of society we just don't pay attention to it if u drive sports away from society I would have a God given talent that I can't use but actors would have a talent that they can use but still contributes nothing more to society than sports it's just cause u don't like something doesn't mean u have to mess it up for people that do like it, just don't pay attention to it
Jason
10 Jun 13
Subject: Please post this in the letters column
This video says it all.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kvyU-Kr7A-I
Also, I read the letter from Jason. Really? There is so much I must say about your letter. Let's start out with the general spelling and grammar of your letter: I'd ask for a refund if you paid for your education. You might want to read some of the letters that have been posted on this site. In general, they have been written by intelligent people that know how to correctly compose a letter. Thus meaning that you aren't going to earn points here by using chat room spelling short cuts. Also, your sentence structure is way too whimsical with too many thoughts and sub-thoughts and sub-sub-thoughts.
Now then, as to the content of the letter I have to agree with much of what you say. I'll make a deal with you. Here is my list of demands.
1. Non-sports fan students will not be forced to participate in jock sniffing events like a school's sports rally.
2. Non-sports fans will be exempt from paying taxes that go to the building and maintenance of sporting arenas.
3. Non-sports fans will not be charged for sports channels on their cable and satellite bill and will be refunded in arrears for past billings.
4. Non-sports fan college students will be refunded all tuition paid that went to support college sporting teams and all expenses acquired.
There might be others here that will add to the list. Let's see how it goes. I hope that we can come to a mutual agreement.
Jim
16 Jun 13
Subject: Not into the Miami Heat
To those that are fine but living here in Miami I see the craze at work - they come in in the morning cheering, put up posters and talk all day (yawn) about "the Heat"...UGH! Posters and billboards everywhere. I have below zero interest and can't understand why everyone is taking this basketball team so personally, continuously talking about them and the players like they are all close friends etc etc etc.
I go to the gym and believe in being fit but forced sports in schools in my days was horrible. I was never good at them, was always picked last grudgingly, I was screamed at by the kids and the physical education teacher, whom I remember once had the kids sit down and watch while he screamed at me and made me walk around the basketball court. I was crying my eyes out. I was 9 years old. I was a little girl and didn't tell my mother. I remember when that class was over and I went back to class crying my eyes out, I saw the phys.ed teacher say something to my fourth grade teacher 'down playing' my crying..it was horrible. The kids really did hate me, no exaggeration.
Forced sports were because in the 1960's, President Kennedy's Council For Fitness made it happen! I used to envy the kids with Asthma because they had doctors notes that they couldn't participate in phys.ed! It was horrible too having to sweat all day in class (no air conditioning) because of phys.ed. as well.
Anyway, I"m glad most schools don't have the budget for phys.ed. anymore - it should have always been an elective!
A.
16 Jun 13
Subject: I Dont get it!
All I see is a bunch of guys running aaround in a circle chasing a ball! Actually I think most of them are closet gays not that Im homo phobic!
Dan
18 Jun 13
Subject: In Response to A.
I know exactly how you feel. I never liked being forced into sports when I was in school. I was pressured by my teachers, my family and my schoolmates time after time. Could they not tell I was about to have a bloody heart attack?!
I grew up with a sporting family in London, UK. My younger brother is the biggest sports fanatic that I know. I just cannot bare it when I hear him yell at the TV as if it were interactive. If anyone else here does it one more time, I will jump out of the window and run to the airport. What's to benefit from it all? I have been asking myself that question since I was three years old. Even then, I was forced to almost kill myself! I was only three years old, for crying out bloody loud! And when I got home, I could hear my parents yell useless quotes, typical of society's disease, like "Come on England!" or "Get another goal!" What does it matter to them? How does it make our lives better? They say that they have skill, but to say that they have skill, at all, comparing it to people like Stephen Hawking, who will actually change our world, is absurd.
I have total lack of interest in this crap, and I don't see what everyone else sees in it. A ball goes over a hoop, or hit by a ball, or into a net. So what?! And why does the government sponsor it?! The UK has massive debt and enormous deficits, and somehow we spend millions on sports. The Olympics cost the UK US$16 billion last year, for nothing more than watching people run past each other on a track. What had these people accomplished? Nothing. And what may we have accomplished if our money and resources were not wasted this way? We may never know. Thanks a lot, sports fanatics.
I think a lot of today's stupidity is caused by PE in schools. Students either love it or are forced into it. It's a dictatorship. It's lack of freedom to do what you want; if you disagree, you suffer for no good reason. Like I did. I, for one, am not nostalgic of this at all, and I feel sorry for non-sportsmen who were criticised and bullied for disliking sports. This is what has plagued society, out of pure enforcement.
PWH
21 Jun 13
Subject: Riiiiight
Ok my friends and I check into this site from time to time because we love laughing at some of the absolutely hilarious posts you people come up with.
I swear some of you people walked in on your mom getting boned by the captain of the football team.
You don't like sports?! That's fine! Nobody is cramming it down your throat saying "hey watch this against your will." It's on tv? Change the channel? It's all over twitter? Then don't read it. But yes, let's cancel sports, the millions of dollars, jobs, and joyous occasions that they bring to people all over the world, because they "annoy" 15 losers on a .org site.
Sports are so much more than the "superbore" as you put it....sweet pun by the way...
Sports do more good than bad. Are they perfect? Heck no. But neither are movies, some depict violence, nudity, and evil. Music is just as tainted. Good ole Kanye west am I right? The list can go on. But sports can unify people like no other. You sit here and talk about the negative aspects of sport, but how about after 9/11 when the nation was so gloriously unified my sports, or after hurricane Katrina, or the Boston massacre that recently occurred. Sports serve as a welcomed distraction for people in their busy and difficult lives. If you don't want that distraction, then FINE, just do something else. There are many people who could argue that art is pointless and stupid. I'm not one of them, but there's a reason that art, sport, music, theatre, all fall into the entertainment category. All in all, none of them actually matter, so you're technically just picking on the one you don't like. You guys are actually the narrow minded ones here. You don't like something, so you create a web page to diss and dissemble it.
My father doesn't care for sports. And if I asked him who won the College World Series or who Kevin Durant plays for, he wouldn't know. He works 60 hours a week, watches plenty of TV, and has conversations with many friends. The point is, if you really didn't feel like hearing about sports, it's quite possible. So stop trying to penalize other people who do enjoy the amazing competition of sport, and do your own damn thing.
The end.
Sent from my iPhone=
22 Jun 13
Subject: In response to the anonymous imbecile
I could not disagree more. Sports crap IS forced down our throats 24/7. Our money and time is absolutely wasted to do nothing more than get someone to kick a ball. And this crap is everywhere. In ads. I want to see, I don't know, some YouTube video, and this annoying ad saying how football just got more interesting appears. I have never seen a bigger cliché in my life. They also appear on ALL TV channels. Aren't there enough useless channels already?! For God's sake, I can't use a TV without being force-fed social ineptitude.
You never get a break. Wherever you go, imbeciles are betting their lives on nothing more than watching useless men kick a ball. It makes me sick. Will they make our world any better? No. There are people who work hard to improve our world with little to show for it, whereas sportsmen make lots of money for nothing useful. Billions are being wasted. Without sports, we could probably have made interstellar contact by now, as so much money could have been spent usefully.
In schools, PE classes are what teach imbeciles worldwide that athleticism is more important than intellect. But is it? No. Students who don't want it shouldn't have to do it, because they wear out without an apology or any sympathy. They are just seen as useless. Even if they have the brain power of Stephen Hawking, they are considered to be failing if they are not as athletic as the rest of them. That is what is wrong with education.
And people are brought together in sports. For what?! Why would idiots from all over the globe come to watch someone kick a ball to each other?! When the Olympics were in London, where I live, I saw idiots from all over the world block the streets to see the torch. So what?! It's just someone with a torch who has just wasted time and money for nothing useful to do. Once he put that torch in the flame, he started millions of global low-lifes doing various things that would do more bad than it did good. For a start, the UK was set back billions, that we could have used to pay back our debt, but no, it was wasted on watching someone kick a ball.
And you seriously think this is all a joke. That highlights society's downfall. So you think that we're all weird because we dislike sports. Think about it, with people thinking that anti-sportsmen are weird, it emphasises a social disease.
Common sponsors do not think to make the world better, just to watch someone kick a ball and not to let the world improve. There are several crises in our world that these people do not think to improve, and so are useless and inept. The intellectual people claim that they are making the world better, and they are, but occasionally they will sponsor sports. With money that could help their career dramatically, wasted on watching random people who are hardly making the world better themselves, these people are, without thinking about it, holding themselves back. So, without argument, sports can truly be called a disease.
And the fact that sports serve as a distraction is inept, as anyone who watches wastes time and money doing it. It isn't entertainment. A TV show comes up with new plots every episode, and musicians come up with new songs. It also doesn't cost nearly as much, including our money, and it isn't shoved down our throats, and it can be used to teach us things. But we learn nothing from sports. All we get is the stereotype that athleticism is important for survival. It diminishes the idea of intellect. And with half of the world's people sponsoring it, they lose the thought to do something useful with their lives. Even with our universities liking sports, they are holding back their own development. Intellectual people are trying to improve our world and sports fanatics are holding us back. Ever thought of that? Rhetorical.
PWH
23 Jun 13
Subject: 45 per cent of English men don't like football
This is a stat a fellow non fan revealed to me at work, 45 per cent of men in England have little or no interest in football. However, the other 55 per cent seem to lord it over the rest of us and consider non fans to be either gay, nerds, strange or all three. Also a fan can never understand why a person from a certain city where football is strong( Liverpool comes to mind) doesn't like the game or how somehow not following that pile of overpaid tedium called the England football team is like treason, yet the same guys show almost no interest in anything else that could be classed as patriotic such as Remembrance Sunday, where we remember men who gave their lives for the country and so football fans could be free to watch their pathetic game.
Also I find non fans seem to have more going on in their lives and don't seem so het up about the game. Typically while these sheeple are standing in some bar ranting at some less than thrilling 0-0 draw, or crying because their team lost 4-0, non fans are probably listening to music, watching a film, a documentary on Nat Geo, going for a walk, taking a drive somewhere, making love, in fact doing something interesting. Typically a football fan's interests when there is no footbore to watch tend to revolve around sports like darts, fat men throwing arrows at a board for hours on end( simplistic and tedious), getting very drunk and then trying to bore people about a match that finished six hours earlier. Me last night I had a talk about Scottish independence, camper vans, George Orwell, real ale and Pink Floyd, all subjects a football fanatic wouldn't understand.
Glenn/ AN Englishman.
7 Jul 13
Subject: Wimbledull
I can announce, with considerable satisfaction, that the only way I've found out that the Wimbledull tennis fortnight just occurred is because some friends have mentioned it on Farcebook. If I still lived in England, I'm sure I'd have had to endure tennis yappage in the workplace, but in California, most people do not care any more than I do. This is one of the benefits of boycotting all sports and media coverage of sports. It passes you by.
Stephen
8 Jul 13
Subject: Greetings from a likeminded ally in England
I was delighted to have found your site after doing a leisurely search for “anti-sports”. Let me just congratulate you on your brave and freethinking views, I had no idea there were so many of us who felt the same.
It’s not surprising that this backlash against sports oppression has begun in the States because America was always a heavily sports orientated country. I have been visiting America ever since I was young and always so sorry to see this vibrant creative nation that has given the world so much; movies, rock bands, coca-cola, inventions, Britney Spears, the lot, being suffocated by the boredom of over-commercialised competitive sports. While I was there I was often dismayed to see so much of your TV taken up by the superbowl or world series where even women follow it religiously – how DO you stand it? Although it’s not quite as bad here in the UK we are a nation obsessed with the so called “beautiful game” and in summertime the most boring thing on the planet – ‘cricket’. We don’t get away lightly either.
One thing I do find though, and I’m not sure if it’s the same in the States is that boys always get it a lot harder than girls. I noticed that most of your letters are from men like myself; always picked last for games at school who felt oppressed and excluded by team sports who need to vent. Have you noticed that women are a lot kinder to girls than men are to boys concerning sport? If a girl doesn’t want to play netball or hockey it’s no big deal but when you hear that a boy doesn’t like football (soccer) it’s a taboo where older men are appalled, “but ALL boys should like football!” When these boring men would ask me what team I supported or if there was ANY sport that I followed (emphasising the ‘any’ like you’re a freak of nature) I would say “hooliganism”. Don’t get me wrong I’m not a moron but in the days of football hooliganism I did find it amusing when the game was brought into disrepute this way like it was somehow getting back at the thing that oppressed me so. Especially when a riot happened before the match started and the whole thing was called off, well that was pure justice particularly when my favourite TV show was cancelled because of the game! I believe that all sports especially football is a violation of boys everywhere and making it compulsory on school curriculums is just bigoted. Let’s not forget how the ‘loser’ mentality of being excluded is something that follows you into adulthood and they call that ‘character building’.
Thank you for being an international club and I hope that the anti-sports revolution explodes in America. May your homeruns and touchdowns be a thing of the past!
Tim W
London
19 Jul 13
Subject: Significant Differences Between Sport and Entertainment
Some sports fanatics say, if anyone such as me questions the idea of supporting sports, that "if sports are inept, then so is entertainment". Is this accurate?
When people refer to sports as a form of entertainment, it implies that sports, like music, film and TV, are a way to amuse and enthral in a given meaning and a pleasant and unique pastime. This is the dictionary definition of entertainment.
Music follows along these lines; every song has its purpose and its meaning. A solo is entertaining in its own way as it is unique and enthralling.
Film and TV meet the definition; a movie has a purpose, as it has a story which develops as you watch the film. Movie and TV Show directors continuously come up with new plots and various comedies continuously come up with new jokes, making each episode unique.
Now, sports. Sports are like hoverflies; hoverflies have a black and yellow abdomen to look dangerous. In the same way, sports look like entertainment, unless you look in by definition. Is there truly a meaning behind a ball being kicked? And is each game unique? What I see in a game of football (which, if you don't know, is what soccer is known as in the UK) is thick men who do little to change how we see things kick a ball to each other. And sometimes one team kicks it into a net more times than last week, sometimes fewer. I don't see much variation to it, any more than distinguishing two protons.
When a ball goes into a net, what does it show?! So what if one random hobo can do that faster than someone else; it does not make us think. The lyrics to a song, a speech in a movie, or a joke in a sitcom can make us think and that's what makes it good. All that sportsmen have to say for themselves is "I reckon I could run faster next time" or "I hope the team make the world support it". Why speak for everyone?!
I like some genres of entertainment over others. If I say that I dislike rap, or dramas, I may get some negative responses but I'm not pressured. If I say that I dislike football, basketball or anything, the whole world of football or basketball turns against me, and says I'll burn in hell for it. Seriously?! What a cliché!
When someone makes a mistake in a film shoot, nobody's criticised, but even a small slip up in sports makes everyone hate him for it. A similar thing happens in schools; failing to save a goal makes even the coach turn on them and make them do 50. Is that fair?
Sports are not entertainment; it's enforcement. Everyone has to conform, and if you fail to be like others, you suffer for it. The uniformity of each game is downright dull, and does not make us think significant things and diminishes freedom of choice and being yourself. Is this fair? Is this how the world should work? No.
PWH
3 Aug 13
Subject: My Theory
I may have worked out why we have a world where sports are globalised and sponsored by billions of people.
I think the main reason for inept sports fanaticism is down to how young children compete to be "the best". Three year old children do this a lot, with their siblings, or in kindergarten, whether it's adding numbers or running races. In a race, for instance, the winner celebrates and boasts it to everyone else. Other children are either heartbroken that they could not "run the fastest", and try their best to get even, or they look up to the fastest child and s/he becomes an idol to them. The children who win most of the time and boast it develop this obsession with winning races or football games, and become sport players. The ones who look up to them look up to other people who run faster than other people, and this develops as sports fanaticism. I think this is also why people who are bad at sports are criticised, as they were those who couldn't run as fast as their peers at three years old.
I also think that sportsmen are idolised instead of people with actual skills (e.g. Stephen Hawking, David Gilmour, Marcus du Sautoy, etc.) because three year olds don't observe these skills in detail. They only describe runners as "fast", rock music as "loud", or scientists as "smart", whereas "fast" is more obvious to them and they can see it. They don't neccessarily think about the talent behind a scientific theory or piano solo.
When I was young, I was disinterested in sports. Some children were faster than me, some slower, but I took it for granted. I hated having other children boast that they could run faster, but didn't force myself to try and beat them. I was more interested in science, such as the solar system and stars, something that they spoke less about. Now, I am keen and knowledgeable of Physics, and am studying hard. And since I didn't idolise the fast children, and hated them instead, I never cared who could run the fastest.
So that's my theory. I'm no expert in this, but it makes sense if you think about it. Tell me what you think. Thank you.
PWH
8 Aug 13
Subject: The Movement
Hello,
My name is Grant, and I am deeply offended by your site. I am a insurance claims inspector, with a dual major in mechanical engineering and architecture, as well as a minor in statistics from Northeastern University. I was also a high school athlete, playing as a left winger on my varsity hockey team and a junior bicycle racer. I played club level hockey through college and continued to race bikes to a professional level until I was 28. I still ride bikes, play hockey, golf, and softball, though I do not participate competitively.
The offense to me is the vast assumptions you make. Lets begin with high school. I didn't feel any preferential treatment from anyone from my high school, faculty or otherwise. My coach did help my parents pay for some trips, but that was because he was an excellent man, and because I grew up with very little money (I payed him back eventually). If I arrived late, I received the same treatment as everyone else. In fact, several bouts of tardiness almost cost me a position on my team. I never got reserved parking (Though I never had a car), nor did any assemblies exalt me and my teammates. I was not popular and I cannot recall any member of any sports team at my school being elected class president. I had a team jacket, but I never wore it.
Again, I was not popular. Even among my teammates. I never drank or used drugs, I didn't screw around with a lot of girls. I listened to punk rock and industrial. I got good grades, better than some people working on the yearbook. The only people I beat up in high school was my sisters ex-boyfriend who wouldn't leave her alone and one of my teammates for stealing my girlfriend. I was not superior over anyone. My school spent more money on the debate team than the hockey, baseball, and basketball teams. they spent more money on the science department than the debate team.
However, you assume that I am a dumb jock. Unfortunately you are wrong. I am smart, caring father and husband, deeply involved with my community. These assumptions are literally akin to racism. You are making a blanket statement on a wide ranging and diverse culture because you disagree with, and feel superior to,said culture.
I believe that you are stuck. you are stuck in high school, feeling marginalized or that your needs are not being met, because of a culture that you do not take part of. In a word, you are a narcissist. You believe that YOU, and people like YOU, are the model of "rational" behavior, and so, those who are not like YOU are "irrational." So You feel the need to crusade. You are no better than the missionaries who colonized America and murdered the Indians. The anger and denial you are feeling right now proves my point.
I will pause there, to explain sports to you. Sports are not merely games. Games are minute. Sports are grand. Sports teach hard work, health, hardship, and most importantly, loss. Sports, for many, are a model of life. How do you succeed? Sports say hard work. How do you get to, and remain, in top form? Sports say practice. How do you overcome loss? Sports say acceptance. And It feels good to be good at something. Sports are enjoyable. And its enjoyable to watch. To observe the grace, the intelligence, the pure physical power. To enjoy playing and watching sports is not "irrational". It is not "rational" either. It is just a good time.
I am offended that you think it is weird that I have season hockey tickets the same way you are offended that someone would think it is weird you don't like sports. The difference is that no one is trying to convert you. We don't care that you don't like sports. So why are you trying to take away our fun? Why do you feel the need to crusade? And why do you dare think you have any right in judging people?
I would love if you have read to this sentence, though I am sure that you have probably closed this email and gone on with your irrational crusade (note the lack of quotations). But if you haven't, that I thank you. And I implore you: Please, stop this. Go outside, meet a girl, play with your kids, mow your lawn, talk to your neighbors, hold hands. Get laid, get lost, get drunk. Trip, fall, get injured,cry, heal, and get over it. Sleep and live well, breath deep, try not to hate yourself and others. And if you must hate? Hate those who deserve it; racists, murders, thieves, rapists. In a word, LIVE.
Yours, Truly,
Grant Fries
8 Aug 13
Subject: Dear Grant
Sorry to have caused offense, but I have to disagree. I read your letter, and what you say does contrast two ideologies, but what you have to see is the two extremes.
I speak for everyone who goes to this site by saying that we do not consider those who disagree to be inferior. And we do not automatically call them stupid; offensive people like racists would immediately call what they thought inferior stupid; we do not do that.
What sports fanaticism does is promote the idea that intellect is unimportant and that physical dominance is favourable. I believe that this makes people mentally forced to make themselves physically ascended, instead of building what could be a keen knowledge.
And with the vast amount of money spent by the government to back this, it makes several billion people question the idea of their own brain power. And think what we may have accomplished if all of this money was not spent on this.
Yes, sports are fun to play if you want; and there's nothing wrong with keeping yourself fit, and it is neccessary to live a healthy lifestyle. I may dislike televised sports, but I exercise for health and for pleasure.
In watching sports, however, there may be determination in the athletes, but every game is just the same with a slight variation to it. Sometimes one team scores more points, sometimes less than before. It doesn't change anything for them or for the world, and what power you see, you see every time. Having acknowledged that, one can move on. It's not the same as Stephen Hawking, who may come up with a theory that could change science, or Moby, who comes up with different sounding songs that you can listen to depending on mood. It's all the same men, kicking the same ball, into the same net until their careers are over.
And people do try to force us to back down and watch sports. I'm sorry, but people who like sports have no comprehension of us disliking sports. They say that "everyone should LOVE SPORTS!" and it annoys us dramatically. Why does every television show get interrupted to show something that we can see on any sports channel, if we want? And why is it that in schools, students who are at the top of a Maths Class but the bottom of a Sports Class are considered to be deficient? I really don't think that's fair. And if we fail something at sports, we are hated by everyone. Even in schools, where slow runners are beaten up. I know of the story of a man who shot a goalkeeper for failing to save one. Seriously. Contrasting with failing an exam, there is no criticism; they retake and all is well. Nobody should be hated for failing something, or murdered.
We do not intend to offend anyone, but we do think that this is what is wrong with the world. And I know that you and I have very different opinions, but I hope we can arrive at a mutual agreement. Thank you.
PWH
9 Aug 13
Subject: @Grant Fries
I wouldn't have believed it if I hadn't read it myself. This moron (Grant Fries) is upset (and indeed butt-hurt) that not every single person on the planet shares his beliefs and love for sports. Most of the world is inundated with non-stop sports and the rest of us have to subsidize and suffer this crap yet he is offended that some people think differently. Fuck him.
BTW, PWH doesn't speak for me.
Don
9 Aug 13
Subject: How do I become a member?
I want to join the cause. Right now some boneheaded coworkers are playing a SF Giants game and I am working. How would they feel if I started talking about Zumba 24/7 & started wearing Zumba clothes to work Ha Ha Ha (I'm over 50)
Thanks for being here
Shila
11 Aug 13
Subject: Reply to Grant Fries.
Grant : My name is Grant, and I am deeply offended by your site. I am a insurance claims inspector, with a dual major in mechanical engineering and architecture, as well as a minor in statistics from Northeastern University. I was also a high school athlete, playing as a left winger on my varsity hockey team and a junior bicycle racer. I played club level hockey through college and continued to race bikes to a professional level until I was 28. I still ride bikes, play hockey, golf, and softball, though I do not participate competitively.
My take : You posted your Qualifications that cant be verified. No further comments.
Grant : The offense to me is the vast assumptions you make. Lets begin with high school. I didn't feel any preferential treatment from anyone from my high school, faculty or otherwise. My coach did help my parents pay for some trips, but that was because he was an excellent man, and because I grew up with very little money (I payed him back eventually). If I arrived late, I received the same treatment as everyone else. In fact, several bouts of tardiness almost cost me a position on my team. I never got reserved parking (Though I never had a car), nor did any assemblies exalt me and my teammates. I was not popular and I cannot recall any member of any sports team at my school being elected class president. I had a team jacket, but I never wore it. Again, I was not popular. Even among my teammates. I never drank or used drugs, I didn't screw around with a lot of girls. I listened to punk rock and industrial. I got good grades, better than some people working on the yearbook. The only people I beat up in high school was my sisters ex-boyfriend who wouldn't leave her alone and one of my teammates for stealing my girlfriend. I was not superior over anyone. My school spent more money on the debate team than the hockey, baseball, and basketball teams. they spent more money on the science department than the debate team.
My take : Tell your life's sports stories to you grand children. I have no Interest.
Grant : However, you assume that I am a dumb jock. Unfortunately you are wrong. I am smart, caring father and husband, deeply involved with my community. These assumptions are literally akin to racism.
My take : Take your Self appreciation somewhere else. No further comments.
Grant : You are making a blanket statement on a wide ranging and diverse culture because you disagree with, and feel superior to, said culture.
My take : Sports culture is a Circus culture. Its not wide and diverse. It can be broken down into three parts 1) Circus Clowns : Sports Players and their team staff like coaches etc. 2) Audience : The dumb people who watch it at home and in stadiums. 3) Corporate billionares : who own the stadiums , sports channels , media , sports teams and sponsor sports. Making billions and keeping the public distracted.
Grant : I believe that you are stuck. you are stuck in high school, feeling marginalized or that your needs are not being met, because of a culture that you do not take part of.
My take : First We have left the high school a long time ago. Its the sports fans who are stuck in their baby phase and are suffering from an arrestted developement. Read my letter reply to clifton maquire on why I am saying this. Second Why should we take part in this sports culture ? For what. We dont find any fun in it , we dont benefit from it. There is nothing to learn from it. Its meaningless to me. I see it as a complete waste of precious time and energy. As I said earlier there are bigger and better things to do in life than to watch Men kick a ball around.
Grant : In a word, you are a narcissist. You believe that YOU, and people like YOU, are the model of "rational" behavior, and so, those who are not like YOU are "irrational." So You feel the need to crusade. You are no better than the missionaries who colonized America and murdered the Indians. The anger and denial you are feeling right now proves my point.
My take : When are we crusading ? YOU ARE THE ONE POSTING ON OUR SITE AND ATTACKING US. WE ARENT GOING ON ANY SPORTS WEBSITE AND TRYING TO TURN PEOPLE AWAY FROM SPORTS. Its pretty amazing that you come to our website and speaks against us and our thinking or views and then accusses us of crusading. Lol seriously i am laughing. Its not only sports maniacs like you who are crusading in our life but also the corporate media with its over excessive coverage and hype of sports.
Grant : I will pause there, to explain sports to you. Sports are not merely games. Games are minute. Sports are grand. Sports teach hard work, health, hardship, and most importantly, loss. Sports, for many, are a model of life. How do you succeed? Sports say hard work. How do you get to, and remain, in top form? Sports say practice. How do you overcome loss? Sports say acceptance. And It feels good to be good at something. Sports are enjoyable. And its enjoyable to watch. To observe the grace, the intelligence, the pure physical power. To enjoy playing and watching sports is not "irrational". It is not "rational" either. It is just a good time. I am offended that you think it is weird that I have season hockey tickets the same way you are offended that someone would think it is weird you don't like sports.
My take : I have heard all these boring slogans on what sports really is and why we should watch sports. These slogans have no real meaning. Sports players also fight with each other like wild dogs. So many sports fight videos are available on the net. What does one learn from such uncivilized behaviour ? Also like street gang members sports players keep abusing each other. What does one learn from that ? ? It Reminds me of the qoute of the political scientist and the famous novelist George Orwell.
"Serious sports has nothing to do with fair play. It is bound up with hatred, jealousy, boastfulness, disregard of all rules and sadistic pleasure in witnessing violence. In other words, it is war minus the shooting."
- George Orwell
Grant : The difference is that no one is trying to convert you. We don't care that you don't like sports. So why are you trying to take away our fun?
My take : We are'nt trying to convert anyone. We are just expressing our views on our website. If you dont care what we think then why are you posting here ? ? Your own comments Clearly shows that you're out of your mind. We arent taking anyones fun away. We dont have billions of dollars or the governmental control to stop the corporate powers from running the Sports circus.
Grant : Why do you feel the need to crusade? And why do you dare think you have any right in judging people?
My take : You're the one crusading at our website. You do everything you accuse us of doing. You said that " who the dare you think you are to judge others". Well Mr. Fool YOU ARE THE ONE JUDGING US. Calling us Narcassit , stuck in high school , we are crusading , , we shouldnt be doing all this , we are irrational etc Well I think you are practicaly retarded because you are accusing us of doing everything what you are doing.
Grant : I would love if you have read to this sentence, though I am sure that you have probably closed this email and gone on with your irrational crusade (note the lack of quotations).
My take : what did you meant by the above comments ? ? we cant read long mails or that we cant read the mail of someone criticising us ? Be clear when you throw childish personal attacks.
Grant : But if you haven't, that I thank you. And I implore you: Please, stop this.
My take : What should we stop ? Posting our views on our own website. Who are you to tell us what to do. We have the FREEDOM OF EXPRESSION. We can write whatever we think and feel. There are millions of website on the Internet where individuals and organizations have posted their beliefs , Ideologies and manifestos. If someone doesnt like their views then they start their own website explaining why dont they like the other group. Let the third side or the neutral people decide which one of the two sides makes more sense. They dont do what you are doing that is go to the other website threaten them to stop writing. What you did was a particular teenager reaction. Thats why I doubt your Qaulifications. Nevertheles why dont you create your own website and post why you disagree with us.
Lets have a debate on wheather Sports culture is a Boon or Curse. I am ready to have an open debate anywhere. Let the neutral audience decide which one of us is correct.
Grant : Go outside, meet a girl, play with your kids, mow your lawn, talk to your neighbors, hold hands. Get laid, get lost, get drunk. Trip, fall, get injured,cry, heal, and get over it. Sleep and live well, breath deep, try not to hate yourself and others. And if you must hate? Hate those who deserve it; racists, murders, thieves, rapists.
My take : How do you know that we dont go outside and do all the stuff you mentioned and what does it all have to do with the discussion we are having here ? your own comments are clearly proving that you're a moron.
Grant : In a word, LIVE.
My take : Let others Live tell this to the corporate billionares who take away the wealth , property and starve the people around the globe with the help of their puppet governments and agencies like the IMF and World Bank. 80% of the World lives below the poverty line. There are tonnes of real serious issues that the public needs toAddress before wasting their hours of precious time in a pathetic circus in which grown up adults kick and hit balls around and fight each other.
@Grant Fries also thank the creators of this site who has given you the freedom to post whatever you want. They are better than your corporate media who censors real issues.
Thanks everyone for reading. Have a nice day.
Thank you
Lance.
19 Aug 13
Subject: Sports Obsession , Living and why they are different things
Well I have noticed quite a few opposing opinions on the website lately, but I enjoy reading them very much as the amount of logic that is missing in each of the arguments is very entertaining. That Grant guy, wow man, I'm not going to bother to dissect his post as it has already been done but I think he was in way over his head. Just like many other similar sports fans that rant about our community, he believes that what we say is directly targeted towards him and that we think his existence is a stereotype that we despise.
Anyway, having not long to go before finishing P.E for the rest of my life, I'd like to write casually about how the everyday person's life is not more complete or better with sports and how it may actually detract from the human experience. I understand that many people pay attention to sport for fun, and some people on this site deny that sport is really any obsession or that is something that can be easily ignored, but in my world, It is an Obsession, on the grandest scale possible. It is true that we are not being forced to watch sport but Primary and Secondary School students are being forced to participate.
For me, sport is easily ignored, I feel like I can finally shut it out, and I feel this brings so much serenity to my existence but for those people who enjoy sports, I understand this would make them nothing but miserable. Still, I think it is a dangerous thing to obsess over and it should be somewhat moderated, for everyone.
In Australia, the Essendon football team is famously known for taking drugs to enhance sporting performance, there is no denying that this isn't taking it too far, and these people have clearly lost sight of what sport is, a game. Sport can be violent and cause inhuman anger and viciousness, which I find repulsive to witness and I think these people should rethink their values entirely as they are not living, they are petty, pathetic people. Sport itself is not evil or toxic but it does bring out the worst of some people. People take on almost animalistic behaviour when participating in sports, and this is when damage is done. I think if Sport was not promoted in the same way it is, it could be more positive but unfortunately, because of people like Grant, who believe Sport has some type of poetic meaning, this is not possible. A small petty thing that has blown dramatically out of proportion, that is what Sport is.
I have my interests and hobbies but I don't discuss them all the time with everyone else I know, I talk about a diverse group of topics, something that some sport fanatics I know seem incapable of. I do take comfort in the fact I am not like the violent, despicable Sport bullies I know, I do think I am superior to them because they are not humans, they are animals. However, I do not think I am superior to people who play Sport because they enjoy it, who do not judge others and don't let Sport be the centre of everything that exists, cutting out anything and anyone else. I think that is completely fine.
Tim=
20 Aug 13
Subject: Sports is a Corporate Circus 3
I am absolutely annoyed listening to these slogans of " What Sports actually is " perpetuated by Sports maniacs. George Orwell wrote a good article here addressing these pathetic nonsense like sports unite people etc. Read here: e_spirit
A friend of mine who used to watch sports told me about a famous World Cup Football 2006 Final incident in which a sports clown named Mettrazi kept on abusing another sports clown named Zidane. The sports clown Zidane in reply headbutted the other clown Mettrazi.
Now my question is to all sports maniacs who keep on trolling our website is What does one learn from such vile and disgusting behaviour ? That wasnt a rare case.
Sports matches are full of such pathetic incidents.
Earlier I used to think that the only difference between Sports Clowns and Circus Clowns is that the Sports ones get way more money for their shows. But now I can see another difference, that is the Circus clowns are more Civilized and well behaved than the sports ones.
Take a look at these two pictures.
See how many corporate logos that F1 Car racer has on his dress. Even his car has the Corporation Vodafone name inscribed in it everywhere. Also just look at the corporate logos at the board behind the player and coache who are in a Press confrence.
As the saying goes that Images speak more than a thousand words. These two images speak volumes about who is behind this sports culture worldwide. There is no secret about this sports culture. Anyone with a minimum intelligence can figure it out who runs it, who benefits from it and who all are the dumb fools wasting their precious time and energy and also their hard earned money.
21 Aug 13
Subject: Football/soccer season
So it's begun and the nights are getting longer and colder, welcome to nine months of the Premiership Football season in England with added tedium like the Champions League, a Europe wide tournament that goes on forever, and when this has finally finished next May, the World Bore( sorry cup) starts in June.
While I don't have an issue with innocent summer sports like cricket and showjumping, polite sports played in summer, it's the fascistic world of football that I really hate. This sport seems to lord it over everything else, the fans behave like automatons and then there's the mindless hatred between fans that only a Nazi could be proud of, we hate Liverpool, we hate Man U, to the point where people have even died over these rivalries. Not to mention the fear and loathing displayed towards men who don't like the sport and who happen upon a pub where a match is being shown on television, usually massive televisions with the sound up loud, and you admit to showing no interest, well it's like saying you've had an affair with the Pope. Also football is ironically driving more people away from pubs than it attracts as people wanting a quiet drink or not wanting to hear a drunken lecture on Rooney being offside in the 94th minute of a 0-0 draw they have no interest in.
As this is the only site I can find where an anti football movement could be organised, most anti football sites tend to be lonely bloggers or journalists who express their dislike of the game, and are far outnumbered by sheep like websites that love the game, I think it's time we set up the Anti- Football Association, the anti version of the game's ruling body. Already I have carried out a piece of resistance at work for refusing to sign up to some tedious weekly football game called Fantasy Football League, the five pounds I would have spent on this is better spent on my supply of nuts and sweets. Also the AFA, which will operate as a form of resistance to the sport, should boycott all bars and social clubs during football matches, support any bar that does not have football showing, start a mass writing campaign to national newspapers explaining why the reason British television is so poor is because football is taking £ 1.5 billion a year in broacast rights and this is taking money from other more fulfilling programmes that millions would prefer to watch. Finally stand up to the football sheep when they criticise you and support cultural and leisure activities that would otherwise die without your support. I really do feel like getting this manifesto printed off and distributed in libraries and other public places.
Regards
AN ENGLISHMAN.
21 Aug 13
Subject: Anti-Football Association
Congratulations on another fine show of resistance! Soon the world will be OURS! :)
I think the Anti-Football Assocation is a great idea. You should start it. There is an ocean of humanity out there... suffering...just waiting to be set free from the tedium of football!
It could grow into a huge invisible organization like the Anonymous group, so big and so terrible and so powerful that pub owners would tremble at the mere rumor of an anti-football association boycott!
Save us now, ENGLISHMAN!
Ray
24 Aug 13
Subject: Sport is a crime against not only humanity but every living creature on earth be it flora or fauna that is directly or indirectly effected by it.
I hate sport. I have never understood the point behind it. It infuriates me that every news bulletin is infected with this unintellectual, irrelevant, childish crap before each weather report. How can you seriously give a flying fart whether or not Jimmy Spankalot won his 56th match of table tennis by 2 points? I have a theory fellow haters. I reckon sport is an sly industry. Its not there for pure enjoyment. Its there for advertisements, gambling, ticket sales,merchandise etc etc. They brainwash you as a child to love it by having a PE class once a week and subtly encouraging you to follow the local footy team. Its a grooming technique that ultimately (if successful) finds you getting fat on a couch eating burger rings watching some drugged up drone on a cycle in France win a shitty little bike race around a hill. ??????????WHY god damn it!!!! The thing I hate the most is how a sports hater is made to feel like he has just dropped the biggest fart in the smallest elevator when the topic of "favourite team" pops up in conversation. They should be the ones to feel awkward for being blinded by the utterly pointlessness of watching abnormally competitive, drugged up, overpaid arrogant Neanderthals in an activity known as Sport. I want sport banned on commercial television.
Love your website people
Devoted supporter
Ian
25 Aug 13
Subject: Dear Ian
I know how you feel. I have never seen the point in sports either; it boggles the mind how it has become so accepted in the modern world, and makes us wonder what we may have accomplished if our resources were not wasted like this.
Your theory about sport being a massive advertising campaign is what we all had in mind. When you look at a stadium, you see the names of various sponsors like Ford, HSBC and Coca-Cola, not about to think that their money is being wasted on getting people to kick a ball. Many people on this site call it a corporate circus, where these companies spend oodles of money to get their names out there. And it's not just companies that do this, it's countries. At big sports events, each country plays another to try to look better than the country they're playing. If a country is out of a big sports event like the world cup, they call it useless. How is an entire country useless if it loses a stupid event like that?!?! I don't know much about this, because I have a life, but from what sports idiots tell me, England hardly does good in things like world football (soccer). If that is so, does that make England a bad country? Hardly. Look at it; great universities, low corruption, many cultures within it. Losing a sporting event changes nothing. Whereas winning a sporting event glorifies this country, and people say that it's superior. Even if that country is corrupt, or poor, or about to attack another, people glorify them for no good reason. It's all for one country to get the most attention by force; a war without the guns.
A while back this year, I posted a theory saying that sporting events in schools are what cause this kind of injustice, where children boast their "superiority" through being fitter, and are looked up to, which makes them look up to sportsmen. As "fast" is all there is in sports, and is a more obvious quality to children than aspects of, say, science and music, this becomes more of an obsession. So I agree, it is brainwashing. This is what is wrong with the world.
I'm no expert, but I think both of our theories make sense and emphasise the ineptitude of sports. And I agree, sports should be eradicated from the world. It is billions and billions down the drain for practically every country in the world.
PWH
31 Aug 13
Subject: The Anti Football Association
In my lunch break at work I got my manifesto printed off and plan to have it photocopied and distributed. Slogans like Millions for Them, Millions in Poverty and Smash The Premiership should strike a chord. Also this week I decided to have a go at this football fan who sits behind me when he was orgasming about Liverpool vs Man U, and I said "you don't live in Liverpool, why the hate towards Manchester people", he muttered something about " tradition and non fans don't understand", and I replied, " this game brainwashes people like you and rips you off. " Again he was flummoxed for a reply and walked off.
Also England are playing on Friday, another excuse for mock patriotism that makes me sick. I think I will leave some AFA leaflets lying in the pub toilets.
Peace
AN ENGLISHMAN.
10 Sep 13
Subject: Here's an interesting article from the Independent, from 1995.
I just found this on the internet.
=========
==========="THE only men you'll find who don't like football," a friend declared as if pronouncing a law of nature, "are the ones who weren't picked for the team at school." British males, as we all know, are genetically destined to fall in love with the Beautiful Game. The few who do not are merely physical inadequates; the sporting underclass.
It's certainly a common enough phenomenon, as those of us can testify who grew up under the impression that our role as "full-backs" consisted of leaning against the goalposts, in the manner of the great Nigel Molesworth, and discussing the higher things of life with the goalkeeper. But can it be the whole story? According to projections from figures gathered by the Target Group Index lifestyle survey, bible of the advertising industry, football in Britain is indeed a game of two halves. Out of some 22 million men, about five million men paid to watch a football match last year; eight million enjoy reading about it; and 11 million watch it on TV. The bottom line is that only about half the men in Britain can even be bothered to watch the so-called national sport on television. It seems unlikely that the other half are all natural born full-backs.
This should not be so surprising: society in general is becoming increasingly fragmented in its tastes. Nevertheless, the media seem to be ever more convinced that we are one uniform football-loving nation. Football is spreading inexorably from the back pages of newspapers to the front, and from the end of news bulletins to the beginning. Yet many British men still somehow manage to let it all pass them by. You would be surprised how many of them claim not to be able to name the England manager (no, he isn't called Cantona) or to know who's top of the Premier League.
How does a man remain so ignorant of the basic facts of life? Early experience appears to be critical. At 37, journalist Andrew Billen remembers his school pitch debut as if it were yesterday. "The first Tuesday afternoon, I was put out on the right wing," he recalls. "My only experience of football was one of those Subbuteo-style games, so I thought the thing was that the ball would come to me. After 20 minutes Miss Jarrett said, `You've got to try, Billen'." Despite his protestations, he was written off as a football dunce, and from that day the die was cast. Later on in his schooldays, he was excused games to work on the school magazine. He discovered that he preferred gossip and writing to team sports, and these skills have formed the basis of a highly successful career. "I suppose it has led to a certain alienation from my sex," he allows, noting that he tends to prefer the company of women.
John Duguid's experience was more traumatic. At his north London state school in the late 1960s he would be cornered by marauding gangs who demanded to know which team he supported. Realising that any answer was likely to be the wrong answer, John retreated from the playground to the library, and once again, his future course was set. Now 36, he advocates prohibition. "I'd ban football and drive it underground - make it like dogfighting and bare-knuckle fighting," he declares. "It's socially reinforced yobbishness. The argument is that it lets off steam, but I think it actually creates it."
But what about the cameraderie, the passion, the drama? "I had a very similar feeling when I went to a bullfight in Spain," he retorts. One of the commonest social difficulties faced by male football illiterates is the assumption that all men are expert in the minutiae of the sport. They have to be, too: it's an exclusive fraternity with strict and elaborate rules. Taking only a passing interest in the game is like enjoying an unfashionable pop record. It's a red rag to the kind of man who goes through life with one foot in the playground.
Martin Frost, a 27-year-old advertising copywriter, tries to beat the football cognoscenti at their own game. He follows football precisely in order to engage its fans in conversation and tease them. This campaign of subversion would be impossible if Frost had not been a Liverpool fan in his youth. "I used to live for football. Every Match of the Day was a must," he recalls. What happened? "I went off it when I discovered booze and girls and parties." Actually, he still takes an interest in the international soccer scene, but football itself is not really the issue. "The game doesn't bother me. It's the following of football, this inane passion. This is my stand against laddishness."
Saying yes to foreign football but no to the English game is more than a sign of limited interest. It indicates that it's not the game that puts male football dissidents off, but the fans. Foreign supporters may be just as laddish, but they can be ignored because they aren't in your face. With the advent of the New Lad, innocent bystanders now face the additional menace of being cornered by football fans who want to share their feelings with them. The chattering classes capitulated in droves to the New Lad in the wake of Nick Hornby's bestselling memoir Fever Pitch, which did more to broaden the market for football culture than any work except Pavarotti's recording of "Nessun Dorma". Former public schoolboys and erstwhile angst- ridden bohemians scrambled to discover the Ordinary Bloke within themselves, rejoicing in the discovery that the proper way for a New Man to respond to the challenge of feminism was to talk about football to his heart's content ...
Two developments in particular in recent years made football safe for the chattering classes. At the commercial end, there was the upscale marketing of the 1990 World Cup. At the grass roots, there was the flowering of fanzine culture, and the crossover between football and rock music that was at its most fertile in the Manchester scene of the late 1980s. Dr Steve Redhead of Manchester Metropolitan University, who discussed the phenomenon in his book Football With Attitude, doubts that soccer will keep its new-found standing among the middle classes in the face of English football culture's recent return to its familiar violent form.
His suspicion is shared by pop critic Jon Savage, who views the football bandwagon with a jaundiced eye. Like Martin Frost, he has nothing against the game: he even played for Cambridge University once, though he prefers rugby. What he objects to is "the licensing of the lad", and what he sees as the essential conservatism of the populist middle-class football cult. "It's a slightly `hipper' version of John Major's village cricket," he snorts.
The equivalent urban image is that of flat caps and baggy shorts, symbols of lost values and certainties. Older British men like Dennis, a retired businessman aged 70, cherish their boyhood memories of football, of a time when fans supported their local team, whose players spent their entire careers with the club, on working men's wages. A fan's loyalties were clear and simple. He was not free to pick and choose among the glamorous clubs of Britain and the star players of Europe. Nowadays, Dennis observes, "It's big business, almost theatrical. It's not a game any more." Jimmy Armfield, who played for Blackpool in the days of the maximum wage, before 1961, and for England, sympathises with the older fan. "It's all come together; the commercialism, the contract system, players travelling all round Europe, European rules; it's a massive business," he observes. "To the fan who's watched his team 30, 40 years, it's a lot to take on board all at once." He is content to have been a player then rather than now, but unsentimental: "We were tied, we couldn't change clubs. The loyalty factor was there, in many instances because it was imposed."
At the extreme end of the scale, it's hard to find men who truly detest football. Most seem to enjoy the game at some level, even if our footballing enthusiasm only flowers every four years, like some exotic desert bloom. What the football dissidents object to is not football, it's the fans. It's the totalitarianism: the taxi-driver's assumption that all men know all about the game, the implication that there's something wrong with any man who doesn't. It's the belief that men evolved to stand in groups of several thousand, shouting.
Of course, the truth is that men evolved in small hunter-gatherer bands. Lighting technician Ian Burns devoted much of his leisure time in his formative years to rediscovering the skills of the hunter. Now 34, he grew up in Walton, close to both the Liverpool and Everton grounds, and yet remained almost completely immune to the pull of the stadiums. As a youth, he preferred going rabbiting with his ferret. There was also punk rock. "Before that, I used to catch frogs." His uncle took him to a football match when he was 10, but he was bored. "I find it quite amusing the way people are rabid about it," he observes.
Ian says he didn't come under pressure in the playground, but then his toughness was never in doubt. As a Liverpudlian male, however, he is assumed to be football-wise. During a stint as a metalworker a few years ago, he was put in the factory team.
After he threw the ball in one-handed, his team-mates realised the truth; as did the other side. He had been at the factory two years without his eccentricity coming to light. Take a look at the man next to you. He, too, could be one of the other half.
My take:
So, only about half of the men in Britain can be bothered to watch sports? One occasionally sees statistics such as only a third of men like sports, or (as our esteemed colleague Glenn points out, above) only forty five per cent. I seem to remember that it was more like eighty five or ninety per cent when I was at school, but then sports are for adolescent boys, aren't they.
If the adult percentage of sports disdainers is truly as much as fifty, then we really are not alone, are we. There are plenty of gentlemen among us whose interest in sports is anything between zero and a dim second to gardening or camping, playing an instrument, socialising at church, going to the gym or doing charitable works. The boorish sports fans who point out that we are in the tiny minority and are abnormal, or that there is something wrong with us, really are full of shite.
And remember, brethren, gentlemen do not play sports.
Stephen
14 Sep 13
Subject: A few thoughts
Hi - Love the website!
The first thing to say is that I don't "hate" sports, as such...please keep reading, though. I think "sports" have a place in society, just like any other branch of human endeavour. Also, I would urge anyone and everyone to take some kind of physical activity (not necessarily "sport", of course) for the sake of their health.
I have plenty of ire directed at "sports culture", though.
I come from The UK (England, specifically), and over here we have a game we call "football", but I think it's generally known as "soccer" on the other side of The Pond.
As far as I can tell, this game of soccer consists of a number of men chasing a ball around a field for 90 minutes or so, with some falling over and/or bursting into tears involved occasionally.
There are a number of facts that I find astounding associated with this game:
1) Some of the players of soccer earn £200,000 a WEEK! This is probably about 5 times what an average hard-working Brit earns in a YEAR!
2) Some soccer players are treated as venerated icons by all levels of society. Typical examples would be: W*yne R**ney, who not only looks like a shaved monkey (but without the charm or intelligence) but also appears to be a thug with the IQ of a 12 year old. St*v*n G**ra*d, a man who drunkenly beats up innocent members of the general public in nightclubs. P**l Gasc***n and G**rg* B**t - men who have drunk their way through about 15 fortunes, 5 liver transplants and 12 marriages between them. R*o F**din**d - you've just got to LOOK at this guy to know he has a SERIOUS coke habit (I mean the drink - "of course").
And yet these people are held up as aspirational role-models.
3) The brain-dead fans that are drawn to the sport...I mean, it's so MINDLESS...week in, week out paying over vast sums of money to watch this ridiculous spectacle, that's always essentially the same. I wouldn't mind so much if it actually in fact had something to do with "sport" as it did once upon a time. Not these days. There's far too much money involved to leave anything to chance, so the results are (painfully) obviously fixed.
4) The way it pervades British culture (as I'm sure it does in other countries, too). Example: when two men are introduced to one another, you can virtually guarantee that one of the first questions they'll ask one another is "what (football) team do you support?". You're virtually a non-person if you give my stock reply of "Well, I don't really follow it...". It never used to be like this...people who took soccer "seriously" were regarded either as rather sad, comical people or thugs.
I'm sure there are many reasons why football is so all-pervasive these days...my pet theory is that the desperately insecure and inadequate people who formed the last government (the same people who brought us "Cool Britannia") decided on football as a means of levelling society to it's lowest common denominator to keep the plebs happy (a kind of "bread and circusses" thing).
Well, that's "society" dealt with. What about my own personal experiences of "sport"?
I went to an all-boys school in the South East of England (which I'd better not mention by name, since I'm about to rip into them). We played three sports: Rugby in autumn/winter, hockey in spring and cricket in summer.
Cricket wasn't too bad, because I could just sit on the touch line (or "boundary" or whatever it's called) and not do much. I made sure I was always bottom of the batting order, so that games period was normally long-since over before I was called upon to actually do anything.
Hockey and rugby were worse, though...there was no "hiding place".
Particularly awful was rugby, where I was always made to play a position called "tight-head prop" (I won't bore you with the details). Anyway, this position placed a lot of strain on the lower back and left leg, and I suffer greatly from it these days. I have a herniated disc in my lower back, resulting in painful sciatica, which in turn has led to partial paralysis and loss of strength and function in my left leg. I can't "prove" anything, but I know that it's all related to being made to play rugby at school.
The sports teachers were awful as well (one in particular). They were all racist, homophobic bastards (I'm neither gay, nor of a differing ethnicity from the teachers, so don't think that I'm motivated by any kind of personal "axe to grind"). One of them was a paedophile, as well - his shoelace had a peculiarly regular tendency to come undone, just outside the showers after sports were over, and it always took him an unusually long time to do it up again (giving him a good opportunity to check out all the young cock going into and out of the showers) - this was the mid to late '80s though, and there wasn't quite the hysteria surrounding this kind of thing as there is now (I'm not trying to excuse him in any way...I'm just saying that nothing was done about it).
The whole culture of the school was geared towards sports. The sporty kids were definitely favoured by the teachers...in many cases quite openly and blatantly. The sporty kids were tacitly encouraged to bully the "dweebs" and the "geeks", just as a natural part of the disciplinary heirarchy of the school. Believe me, this isn't "funny" like in a film such as "Revenge of the Nerds"...it's extremely damaging to the confidence and emotional well-being of the recipient.
As I said at the top, I don't in fact "hate" sports...nor am I physically lazy or against exercise...I've just been totally turned off it by idiot teachers and "jocks", and by moronic society. But (oddly, you might think), I am in favour of the reintroduction of compulsory physical activity into schools...I think lack of exercise is why we're turning into a nation of couch-potatoes....I just hope if/when it does happen, it's done in a rather more considerate way than it was in my day.
Regards...................#1 Man U. Fan EVA!
PS - just as an aside, I was shocked by a story posted by Glenn last year, about how his non-swimming friend was thrown into the deep-end of a swimming pool by a sadistic sports teacher. If that had been my kid, I would have marched into that school there and then, and beat seven shades of shit out of the guy. Any sports teachers reading this, please take note.
23 Sep 13
Subject: Damn sports
Now I have known this site for nine months now. I have enjoyed reading the articles here and the letters by fellow sports haters and sports fans alike. I haven't written a letter yet as didn't feel it needed, until now.
You see, I'm a Filipino, which means basketball is the damn premier sport here. America has gridiron football, England has soccer, and The Philippines has basketball. What a shitty sport. In Philippine neighborhoods, you can see some freak wear some basketball jersey with JAMES written behind it. And everyone expects you to know so damned basketball trivia which leaves me trying to either avoid the question or slowly walk away altogether. I'd also play anything except basketball, as this shit is shoved in me 24/7.
Now, I didn't tell you why I wrote this letter. Which I feel the reason is significant enough. I'm an Eighth grader, or in our old 10 year programme, sophomore. So I'm fourteen years old. Our intramural just started. I didn't join but one man who joined told me I was a loser for not joining the intramurals. I would have joined if the only sport wasn't BASKETBALL. This shows how singleminded my school is. 2,400 students in our high school, and one sport. About 45 percent or more students don't even play basketball, and look! One sport for all of us! They could have added football/soccer, which over 60 percent of the students play, but they all think we're one basketball unified school/nation.
Now don't think I'm hate sports entirely. I happen to be a big fan of fight sports, specifically MMA, wrestling (Freestyle and Pro), and Shootfighting. I'm already finding a Brazillian Jiu-jutsu dojo, if you can find one in the Philippines. At least you can see men in gi fighting, unlike in other sports where men in shorts chase some damn ball. Where my basketball playing classmates are slapping me on the ass. I'm not sure about the other sports guys in my school, but the only people slapping asses and doing gay like behavior that I see are the guys the play basketball. And they even call me gay for not playing sport! I would've put them in the Kimura lock the moment they said it but I would get in trouble and some of them were girls.
Anyway, I'll end this letter or rant, what you call it. I'll write more letters in the following weeks.
BTW, thank you for the siteOne Time Man=
25 Sep 13
Subject: Victory is OURS!
Of course I would not know this if it wasn't in the news as I don't watch sports but last night some big name baseball team broke a new Nielsen ratings record:
ZERO POINT ZERO. Not a single Nielsen household tuned in to watch the game!
http://houston.cbslocal.com/2013/09/24/astros-break-another-record-a-0-0-tv-rating/
Don't give up, friends! The tide is turning!
Don
29 Sep 13
Subject: I just don't get it
I've had football shoved down my throat for my entire life. I grew up in a small town in Wisconsin, but I imagine it's the same story all over the country, perhaps the world. Everyone in my family is a big football fan, so I always had to hear about the fucking Packers or the fucking Badgers or my fucking high school team. I never understood the fascination around a bunch of organized shoving.
They start in on you when you're still a boy. They dress you up in jerseys and give you foam fingers and tell you that the group of giant idiots in green are the good guys and the ones in purple are the bad guys. Then, depending on your genetics and how early you hit puberty, everyone wants you to play football. If you were "lucky" enough to be huge, then you would get the privilege of playing football for your school. The school would have pep rallies to honor the football players and you were guaranteed to be one of the popular kids. Teachers would look the other way if you got in trouble and they would give you extra "help" if your grades were struggling. If you weren't physically designed for football, there was still salvation for you if you just pledge your undying loyalty to the team and basically keep to the shadows. If you didn't drink the Kool-Aid, you would be singled out at a "fag" or a "freak" or something.
So, if you happen to be an especially "gifted" football player in high school, you might end up getting to go to college for free. One big difference here. By the time you get to play college in football, any special treatment that you may have received in high school for being on the football team...just multiply that by a factor of 1000. Now that the college or university has money invested in your sweaty ass, you are officially too big to fail. Forget about having to show up for class. Fuck that noise! You're there to play football, not get an education. Fuck those poor, smart kids who actually have a career path in mind. If you make even the most minimal effort to look like you give a shit about your studies, you'll basically get a free bachelor's degree. It's probably a business degree so that you can work at your dad's company in the event that you don't get drafted by the NFL. You get to live for free at a frat house if you want to. The football players all got free mopeds and laptop computers at one school that I won't mention. They send, well basically prostitutes to your room because they can't have you stressed out for the big game. Don't ever worry about getting pinched for drugs or getting a DUI, either. The university's lawyers will totally get your ass off the hook, assuming that you were unlucky enough to get caught by a cop who wasn't paid off or just a big football fan, him/herself.
If you weren't lucky enough to win the genetic lottery, well there's still hope. You just have to become a rabid fanatic about football. Cover you car with bumper stickers and wear official team apparel everywhere you go. Pay wads of your hard-earned cash for the privilege of freezing your ass off in a stadium with 40,000 other idiots with paint on their faces, drinking $9 beers out of a Dixie cup. Memorize every statistic you can and worship these giants among mere mortals.
I know I'm being a bit long-winded here, but I want to say that I do understand and respect competition. I'm a pool player, and I love to compete playing pool. I follow the pro players, because I can relate to them as a fellow player and benefit from their knowledge and experience. I don't scream at the TV when my favorite player misses a shot or gets a foul called on them. I certainly don't expect anyone else to give a shit about my game or to invite people over to watch the Mosconi Cup. That being said, I can understand somebody liking football if they ever played football themselves. I guarantee you that almost every person who watches pool matches plays pool themselves to some degree. I'll also guarantee you that less than 5% of football fans have any experience playing football. I'm particularly baffled by female fans. I fucking laugh my ass off whenever I see a female football fan, especially a really vocal one. You fucking know they're only doing it to please their psycho husbands/boyfriends. Maybe they wanted to be a popular chick in high school but they weren't pretty enough to be a cheerleader so they couldn't go out with a football player. There's no possible way they can relate to the players, other than wanting to get fucked by them. Frankly, that's the only reason I would watch beach volleyball or figure skating.
Nothing ever changes. Everywhere I go, some well-meaning cashier or stranger on the sidewalk has to make small talk whenever a "big game" is going on. "Gonna watch the big game this weekend?" "Do you know who's winning?" "Can you believe (random jock) did (random stupid jock thing)?" No, because I have a fucking life of my own! Look into it, it's fucking fantastic to live your life indifferent to a sports contest taking place miles and miles away by a bunch of people that I don't know and who could give a fuzzy shit about me. I'd rather you just make some mundane comment about the weather and leave it at that. At least the weather actually affects my life to some extent.
Thanks for listening - Matt
1 Oct 13
Subject: my volleyball rant :)
I'm a freshman and I have surprisingly made the jv volleyball team. I had played softball since I was four and I stopped at 10 because it was getting in the way of my schoolwork. I didn't mind sport back then. Even in jr high I didn't care about school sports, I was just hanging with my friends and having fun, until last year. My parents forced me into club volleyball without telling me. it was alright at first, I was pretty good, I play middle blocker and opposite hitter. So I made a pretty advanced team for my level; everyone was better than me, and they made it obvious. Whenever I would mess up, my coach would yell at me and cuss at me in front of everyone. I am naturally a quiet person, so playing a sport with people I didn't know and I wasn't a big fan of the sport at first, I wasn't all that sociable. The ball would come over and I would dig it up pretty well, but my team and my coach would get pissed at me for not 'calling' the ball. I didn't get it, I did what I needed to, I wasn't an all-star player and I kept to myself because of how judgemental the players were. I ended up quitting that club team because the bullying got really bad.
Come this summer, my friend and I agreed to try out for my school volleyball team to get out of PE. The thing is she made the freshman team and I made junior varsity. My coach is a total dick. He would yell at me for being weaker than the other girls because I couldn't lift as much as them. He humiliates me because he says I 'wear too much makeup at practice' (im kinda pass off as a goth girl with a lot of eyeliner) when in reality I have lesser time than everybody else because of where my fifth period class is so I have to walk across campus and have less time to get ready. As for my teammates, I hate them. The thing is they're not directly mean, they just don't acknowledge me. I can be having a really great day and I might get awesome kills at practice or games, but my coach and my team always find one thing to critique me on and bug me about it, never telling me "great job" or "nice try". My setter refuses to set me anymore because she thinks I suck, she will force herself to only set the other two front row hitters. Another thing, over the summer I hurt my knees really bad while I was running, so sometimes I have unbearable pain in my legs so I feel like sitting down, and he makes me play on it. Im in physical and mental pain while playing sports now. I walk into the gym everyday almost feel like crying, and I am one sensitive girl. I have been bullied a lot in the past and I have anxiety problems, so sports is not raising my self esteem at all, it's actually making it worse. Not to mention today my coach was hitting balls to us and I wasn't paying attention and the ball went straight down on my boob, knocking the wind out of me and i could barely breathe. He just walked by and said that's what you get for not paying attention. He also picks favorites (I am the least) so he makes some people run more than others and makes some people play more than others. This is why I hate sports: the stress and the pressure. If you are not 100% passionate about it, it's living hell. I get called out, get called bad names, physically and emotionally abused by my peers, and the sport of it is making my depression worse. I used to bulimia, and im happily recovered now, but now I have blood sugar problems. I need a bottle of water with me 24/7 and i snack on things all day just so I won't pass out. Multiple times over the summer during conditioning I puked and fainted and my coach couldn't care less. I told him it's a medical problem then he said then I shouldn't be on the team and that I am useless. I begged and begged my family for me to quit but I happened to be raised in a pro-sports family: all my uncles made varsity football/baseball/volleyball freshman year, it was even SUPRISING to them that I didn't make varsity. All my aunts and my mom played basketball and even they don't understand my situation. All my cousins, track and field, soccer, and water polo. Me, i suck ass at all sports. So they force me into sports just so they can say that I am involved in volleyball and not even care how I am performing or how mentally tough I am. I hate it, I've cried after practice, games, scrimmages, tourneys. I have ranted for two hours straight about the subject to my boyfriend. My parents have yelled at me, called me a cry baby and useless since I was in kindergarten whenever I would mess up or have a not so good game. I remember once I cried at a softball game because I was afraid my dad was gonna yell at me afterwards and the coach and manager took me aside and asked if he physically abused me. As you can see, I really hate sports, and I just need to let this all out.
Thank you :)
MaryRose
15 Nov 13
Subject: Football and rugby at the same time
A hard week at work, weather in England taking a turn for a worse with the mercury dropping and strong winds, time to drink some ale and wind down. Fat chance, tonight until 9.45 the pub will be giving me the riveting choice of England vs Chile in some pointless football friendly to fulfill a television contract and on the other television, Scotland vs New Zealand in the rugby league world cup (a tournament most of the world don't care about, but I happen to live in the part of Britain that does). I don't give a toss about Steven Gerrard's free kick or New Zealand getting a knock on for an interchange or whatever weird language rugby league uses.
Now don't get me wrong, there are some sports I like, usually the more relaxed summer ones that don't attract the same number of fanatics and bores who have to chant at the television like people at a Nuremberg rally and hate dissenters who just want a quiet drink, or block their view of the television. Funnily enough a couple of chilled out men on a summer's evening relaxing in front of cycling is far preferable to the team sports fans who are just automatons.
AN ENGLISHMAN.
16 Nov 13
Subject: Members of the team
I can remember at school there being a distinct type of favouritism shown to members of the rugby union team. This was my second high school, not the one I mentioned in a post last year where the games teacher nearly drowned a pupil, but the problem here was my housemaster was also the games teacher. OK he wasn't an out and out sadist like the last one, but he had a distinct form of favouritism towards people who were on his beloved rugby team and didn't like non athletic pupils.
I can quote two examples.
Two guys in the fourth form decided as it was summer to bunk off school for a week and enjoy the sunshine. Member of the rugby team and one of his favourites gets a mild telling off and a detention, non member gets ten detentions and nearly gets expelled( caning had just been abolished at this time). Talk about favouritism as the non member, a punk rocker and a very good artist and musician, had far more going for him academically than the player, who wanted to leave school at 16.
Second example, the player used to give me a fair bit of grief for being poor at sport, although in later life he did apologise. On one occasion I complained to the housemaster after a bad bit of bullying had reduced me to tears, he simply laughed it off and told me to stop causing trouble and to toughen up. Bullying continued off and on until the housemaster's superior, an English teacher with no sporting interests at all, overruled him and stopped the bullying by laying down the law.
Also later on in school I had to deal with a real horror who enjoyed humiliating me in class and regarding me as " pond life" for the simple crime of not liking rugby union. He became a military policeman, the most hated ( by other branches) branch of the British forces and a suitable job for a nasty character like him.
GLENN/AN ENGLISHMAN.
24 Nov 13
Subject: Sports is a Corporate Circus 4
Sports fans are complete joke. Any person who spends most of his time watching , thinking , discussing sports is the saddest cunt of planet Earth. Their mental condition means they are incapable of doing anything creative in their lives. They are only good at watching adult kick or hit ball around. What are there accomplishments ? What have they achieved in their life ? what examples have they set up for the rest of humanity ? They are just stupid jackass who lay on the Sofa and watch sports clowns day after night. Of course you would never discover these dunces discussing art , philosophy , mathematics , Economics.
Hey morons stop watching sports there is a whole World out there. Why dont you invest your time to Comprehend the works of the giants of philosophy like Leibniz , Kant , Neitzche , Geothe and Hegel. Or do some other useful work like fighting sociality inequality. These sports maniacs stand for nothing , they have no cause , no goal , no plans , they are no one. They will inscribe on their graves " I watched all matches of Man Utd " What fools and Idiots.
Big Question to Sports maniacs ? Where is their grand project to transform the world and to liberate the world from the deadly clutches of elitist , globalist , corporate powers ?
I know the answer before hand No such project exist. Infact one needs knowledge , thinking , reasoning , ideas to do such a thing. Sports fanatics are braindead they have none of the above skills. How have they ever helped humanity , the reverse is true they are filling up the bank accounts of Corporate tyrants who run the World and are increasing their power. Final words for any sports fool reading. BECOME A REAL PERSON AND GET A REAL LIFE.
Lance.
31 Dec 13
Subject: Great job fellow professional sports haters
I enjoy this site very much. I hate professional basketball, baseball, soccer, golf, and especially pro and college football. I say tear down all those worthless concrete stadiums and just let the land go back to nature. Thanks to all those who wrote in this year with their fantastic, rational, logical, wonderful anti-sports thoughts. I greatly appreciate all of you. I especially enjoyed 29 Sep 2013 by Matt and 24 Nov, 2013 by Lance. Both letters are definitely candidates for a nationally televised public reading at the 2013 I Hate Sports best letter of the year awards dinner at Cooperstown (also to be read during the half-time show at this years' stupidbowl by Obama). Both are written right from the heart, and the truth and the rotten sports experiences of the writers really shine through. Thanks again anti-sports fans. Steve Z.
