Sports Republicans

Hello kiddies! This is the first in what will hopefully be a mini series on Sport Republicans.

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This is a term I coined one evening while engaging in a sprts related discussion with an associate of mine. As men usually are, we were both insistent on the points we were respectively making. The only true difference in my argument versus his was that his argument sounded like a consolidation of sports talk radio and home team bias. It was at this time that it dawned on me that I was talking to someone who did not take the time to think about the subject ihe was defending, rather he too the overly conservative route of saying (and believing without thought) what everyone else was saying. I abruptly ended the conversation with "I cannot talk to a sports republican". Oddly enough, he laughed without asking for further explanation. Why? Because he know the gist of my comment.

A sports republican is someone who is, much like his political counterpart, considerably conservative in relation to sports. For example, a sportscaster (most of whom are sports republicans) will openly denigrate an athlete for talking trash during the game. Why is that? Is being professional shutting up and doing what you're supposed to be doing and that's it? Is trash-talking not part of the spirit of competition, the fun of it all, the drive of the game? Do you honestly think the players that don't trash talk have more class because they keep their mouth closed? If your general feeling is yes to these questions, chances are you're a sports republican.

Now don't get me wrong. I'm not saying being a sports republican is bad. Well, actually, yes yes I am. But don't let my opinion affect your self esteem. It's just that trash talking is something we all do in our daily lives whether it's at the water cooler or in the end zone. We do it, enjoy it, and it is what makes our job go by a little bit easier. Hell in some cases, receiving a fair amount of trash talk can be the driving force to some of our accomplishments at work. So why do we wish to deprive professional athletes of this ritual. Why don't we want to see them having fun at their job? Why should they not get to celebrate their touchdown creatively? I know I have my own celebration that I do when I get something important done at work so why shouldn't Terrell Owens be afforded that same pleasure? These guys shouldn't be thought of as cocky because they play their game with confidence just like we should not assume that the players that avoid celebration and trash talking have some inordinate amount of class. Chances are they just suck at trash talking.

So now that we have an idea of what I mean by sports republican when it comes to trash talking, let's move to what it means to be a Sports republican in other ares of the sporting world. However, let's do that tomorrow. Actually, let's not say tomorrow. Let's say later....yes, we'll get into that later.