The Ra-Hooligan: Confessions of a Sports Junkie

So I'm sitting in this Core class and the professor begins to discuss St. Augustine's Confessions, in which the great philosopher/priest pours his heart out Oprah-style, revealing all his sins and indiscretions to the readers (and God) in the hope of salvation. Among other things, the saint apparently thought about sex a lot and liked to destroy orchards.

I thought, well that's pretty lame. I think about sex all the time, and while I've never destroyed an orchard there have been a couple of times I thought about knocking down my neighbor's ugly apple tree. It just rubbed me the wrong way.

But what Confessions really made me realize was that I have yet to own up to my unhealthy obsession with... sports on television.

Yes, yes, it's true. I watch so much sports on television that I could probably transcribe the score from SportsCenter by ear, and I don't even know how to read music.

It started off innocently enough with some post-season baseball as a young boy. Remember the Twins-Braves World Series? Oakland-Red Sox ALCS? Sure you do, but, hell, I remember the commercials.

Then came the NFL. Jordan and the Bulls. ESPN (which I blame the most). It was hitting me so fast, and I felt so free every time I changed the channel and moved from the Wide World of Sports to the Olympics to the Lipton Championships (an old tennis tournament).

I am now convinced there was a conspiracy in the early 1990's, similar to the tobacco industry, that attempted to expand my TV-watching from the major weekend sports to an almost-daily feeding of games and competitions, most of which I had never seen played in real life. It wasn't a case of supply and demand that led to the plethora of sports-only stations; it was Ted Turner, Rupert Murdoch and Dick Ebersol teaming up and creating a demand where none existed before.

In the early days, and I refer to 1991, the only sports you could really get during the week was Monday Night Football and the Persian Gulf war. All that changed seemingly overnight. Suddenly, Major League Baseball and NBC conceived The Baseball Network and you could see national games on Wednesdays. Instead of just the NBA on NBC on Sundays, cozying up to Marv Albert (now a dangerous idea) and his take on the Spurs-Jazz, one could watch TNT and TBS and see four more games a week.

Don't pretend you don't know what I'm talking about.

The effect of all this overstimulation meant that now I could watch almost anything at anytime. I had been de-sensitized by ESPN. I expected instant replay all the time, little boxscores in the corner of the screen and Chris Berman saying "back, back, back" and so forth.

I gave in to the temptation. My poor mother, used to waiting to serve dinner until the half was over, now had to wait for a line change, a qualifying heat and for that big Swedish dude to finish pulling the firetruck accross the line.

I often ate my dinner cold.

I still don't think you have an appreciation for what I'm talking about. It's not just real sports-- I've caught myself watching ice skating, NASCAR and pro bowling. Chicks playing nine-ball can be quality television, and, by the way, remember Roller Derby?

There is a deep psychological factor for this I'm sure. Recently, I have noticed it extends to beyond sports-- I think I just like watching competition. BattleDome, a newer form of American Gladiators, plays on this addiction I have for watching competition. I was watching it yesterday and I still have no idea what the hell they were doing.

How bad can it get? Sometimes, I watch my roommate playing Internet poker.

Unlike St. Augustine, however, I do not feel alone and doomed to damnation. Millions in America suffer this same affliction. Look at the ratings for the new XFL, for example. It beat the NHL All-Star Game, which we all know is hardly a competition.

People will flock to the screen if they know they're gonna see great competition. While I still stand behind the old staples like the Super Bowl and March Madness, and almost never get off the couch during the Olympics, I admit I eagerly anticipate Temptation Island and Survivor because those shows provide better competition most days than your average NBA game.

I could probably go on and on about how the media exploits me and those like me addicted to competition, but Survivor is on soon and I'm worried that fellow Harvard man Nick Brown could be in danger. Instead, let me leave one last example that should convince those of you out there who think I'm full of baloney.

You know A&E? The channel dubbed "Arts & Entertainment" that shows biographies and makes original movies based on The Great Gatsby? About as high culture as you can get on basic cable? Well, they have a new show hosted by, of all people, Terry Bradshaw. It's called The Competition. Check out this Friday's episode, which includes a Best Mule-Pulled Wagon race.

I bet even St. Augustine would watch that.