If you hang out with me for an extended period of time, you come to realize that I pay entirely too much attention to sports.* A sampling of bookmarked websites on my computer reinforces this theory. A sampling:
www.espn.com
www.si.com
hardballtalk.nbcsports.com
profootballtalk.nbcsports.com
collegefootballtalk.nbcsports.com
cfn.scout.com
www.nationalfootballpost.com
This doesn't even include the local stuff I look at daily, the fantasy aspects, or any team sites, which leads me to the purpose of this post: what sports and which teams I'm going to try (some with Baby Mama's help) to convince Baby Hunt to become a fan of.
Sports:
There are three sports that I follow religiously**: college football, professional football (yes I am listing them as two different sports), and professional baseball. I don't really care about college basketball until March, and care about professional basketball as much as I have a chance of playing the sport. I enjoy watching hockey, but I don't know squat about the sport, and I can get into soccer about once every two years (Euro and World Cups).
Professional Football:
I'll start with the one that is not supported by both parents in the Hunt house. Bonnie's never gotten into pro football. She has never had a favorite pro football team, and as long as we've been together, she's always had her fill of football after gorging on college football on Saturdays. (Unlike me, I can always loosen my belt for more football). Since the mid 90's (after I was naive/stupid/young enough to want to cheer for the Buffalo Bills while they were making the NFC East look amazing four years straight) I've been a fan of the Kansas City Chiefs. It hasn't been the most productive decade plus of fandom (the good teams always defecated over themselves in the postseason, or they have been just plain bad), I haven't always been a die hard fan, and they are currently terrible, but they are a Midwest team that have had success in the past, and the fan base seems to be as supportive as they come, even when the team is bad.
Professional Baseball
Infamous fan bases leads me to the team I've cheered for whenever I've followed baseball,*** the Chicago Cubs. I am probably going to have to apologize to Baby Hunt every time the Cubbies do something to increase their World Series drought (102 years and counting), but I enjoy the Cubs history (good and (mostly) bad). Honestly, part of me wants to celebrate the inevitable (a man can dream) World Series victory with my family. And yes, that does mean I suckered, . . . I mean let the team's play convince. . . , Bonnie into being a Cubs fan. Well, at least as long as Mike Fontenot plays for them (that's another story. . .)
College Football:
This leads me to the final in my triumvirate of sport obsessions, I mean hobbies. . . college football. College football has been the sport that I've followed the most in my lifetime, the one I've committed the most funds to, the one I'll spend hours watching, the one that is dripping in the IV currently stuck into my right arm . . . you get the idea. I'm the guy who would watch a college football game from 25 years ago, involving teams/players I have no emotional attachment to, because it's on TV (I'm looking at you ESPN Classic and BTN).
When it comes to my favorite College Football team (and collegiate athletic in general) it will come as no surprise to a lot of you, and as a traitorous shock to some of you. For those of you who know me, I graduated from Iowa State University in 2007 with a BS in Materials Engineering. And while most people are loyal to their Alma Mater when it comes to collegiate athletics, I am not one of those people. I was a University of Iowa fan long before I decided to be an engineer, and my sport loyalties post college (as with during college) reflect that. Now, I don't wish physical harm to all things cardinal and gold as to most Hawkeye fans do, but Bonnie and I will be cheering for the Black and Gold, and we intend to raise Baby Hunt the same way. To illustrate this, and to sum up this post as I have gotten quite wordy it appears, below we have our wonderful Izzers(sporting an Iowa Hawkeye collar that is pretty much impossible to see with her fur) showing off an outfit Bonnie and I purchased the last time we were in Iowa City.
*The irony here is that I am absolutely terrible at anything needing athletic ability, one thing that I hope my child does not inherit from me.
** If by religiously I mean I try to consume information about them as if I were King Henry the VIII and the sports had ovaries. Or for a more local flavor, if I were Izzers and sports were peanut butter covered Ritzes.
***After the last baseball strike, I had a tough time giving a rip about baseball (with the exception of who had the better steroids, I mean home run swing, in 1998) until I was living in Chicago for an internship with Motorola in 2006, and had lots of free time, and cable, to watch baseball.
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