The Spring Months are Tough for a Sports Fan

I am an avid sports fan, hungry for just about any sports commentary, footage or contest that I can find. But the spring months are tough.

Baseball, spring training, preseason exhibitions and the meaningless first 70 games leave me starved, its not enough to feed my sports diet. I am trying to develop an interest in America’s supposed past time, but between the steroid scandals, irrelevant games, ridiculously slow pace, Barry Bonds floundering in the media and the marathon TV watching time that is required to watch a game I’d rather depend on a 30 mins episode of Baseball Tonight to get all of my info. I am sorry but I haven’t caught the fever. I’ve even tried fantasy baseball, even more boring.

March Madness has subsided. No more can I revel in the tension and anxiety on an almost daily basis for an entire month. 64 teams narrowed down into a 4 team match-up so captivating that we have developed personalities, sayings and trends based solely on this tournament, “its Dynamite Baby”, evoking Dicky V, cutting down the nets, and college age kids playing a sport (for free) and actually showing how much they love it.

Ok, so maybe it wasn’t the most exciting tournament in recent years, but just because all the idiots in America didn’t have their pools picked right, and some underdogs and mid-major conference teams actually got a chance this year, doesn’t mean it wasn’t a good tournament. I grew up in a Duke family, we were close with Greg Koubek, a hometown favorite who played on 4 of Duke’s Final Four teams, so I always look for the Blue Devils, but regardless of who is in the tournament, it can still be exciting. So next year, tear up your brackets if you picked all the favorites and try something new, just watch and enjoy.

I can follow the PGA tour, which I do, as a big Mickelson fan, but for some reason I always find myself getting jealous, how come I can’t hit just one shot like these guys, just kidding, I do draw a certain degree of inspiration for my golf game from watching the Big Boys play, and hey 5 pars in a row on the back nine this weekend is enough to keep me interested.

So what am I left with, finding obscure sports on late night cable channels, USA Sevens Rugby, ESPN 2 Paintball, and the World’s Strongest Man? As if that isn’t hard enough to deal with, I have to listen to the ESPN guys tease me with juicy NFL gossip. I’m in purgatory each year when autumn leaves us for the doldrums of winter and early spring.

But the NFL draft is approaching, and Mel Kiper Jr. just makes me angry, why must you tease me, torment me with talk of 40 times, touchdowns, sacks and completion percentage, please, please just give me what I need. I can watch “Battle of the Gridiron Stars” so I can catch a glimpse of our helmet and spandex clad demi-gods, but it just isn’t enough. My Sundays are lonely and boring; I struggle to get out of bed sometimes because I know that NFL Sunday Countdown isn’t on.

I think it’s true, I worship Football and the NFL is my messiah. Please calendar days, bring me to salvation, shooting 15 over par is not enough to keep me sane, I need my pigskin.