His interest in Sports

I remember watching cricket and tennis as a kid with my mum, dad and brother. As a family we watched Olympics and other national games that were telecast on the TV. My father played a lot of badminton and hockey; my brother played a lot of football and so sports has been part of our growing years.

When I got married, the level of sports in my life took a level jump. I believed I came from a family with a healthy exposure to sports but my husband and his family were at a totally different level. My father in law has been an athlete all his life. He turns 75 next month and still wins in veterans meets. My brother in law has played sports at a State level and so has my husband. So the most pertinent topic usually when I visit my inalws house is 'did you see the xx match?'

I was fairly used to dad watching cricket for hours or watching any game that especially involved our country. But my husband is a sports fan to a different level altogether! He can watch ANY sports, featuring ANY country and ALL the time. I mean literally all the time. There are weekends, where I have seen him watch sports varying from Ice Hockey to Basketball to NFL and having cricinfo.com scores open on his laptop as well. He even watches old sports, games that took place before we were even born/ Black & White telecasts, that is something I just can’t fathom, I don’t even try, I go off to do my own stuff!

It took me some time to understand the depths of the passion he has for sports and come to accept and appreciate it. I accompany watching sports with him for as long as I enjoy it and then get to my reading or playing online scrabble after my level of interest has completely waned.

The vast information and data points that I get to hear on sports of various kinds from all along history is just amazing, I can’t even relate to some of the statistics and am left bewildered at the kind of information people track! I am patient and a keen learner, so I take it all in and show an interest in the variety that Sports has to offer; my husband on the other hand states – that am I not lucky to have increased my knowledge so much on various sports just by being with him!! Paradox?!

He also has an interest and plays a lot of Poker and so now I get to watch a quite a bit of Poker on TV thanks to the WPTs and HPTs of the world. Some days its loads of Golf, but that is also fine, since dad is an avid golfer, so I I understand that game well. Then there is badminton and Squash which is fine .. being a little of a player of both. The other day we were watching Bowling which was interesting as well ( all I have bowled is in front of the TV with XBox Kinect and never in a bowling alley), then some days its Snooker and Billiards or Shooting and Archery.... 

But frankly, I am glad, yes my awareness has increased and I am a richer person for it. Thanks to his enthusiasm, I went and saw my first cricket match in a stadium and saw India and England tie at a World Cup 2011 match, I saw my first NBA game when Sacramento Kings beat LA Lakers in Dec 2011 and am looking forward to watching some Tennis and a NFL game too.

I was all excited about this year’s super bowl and made the popcorn, opened the beer bottle and sat down to watch the game I frankly only half understand!

My husband and his childhood group of friends talk so much sport, that we wives have no choice but join in and get smart. On the sidelines we think we might pick up some important data points to throw off at a next day office conversation with the guys and get some brownie points at work!

I was recently reading the book ‘Those Guys Have all The fun : Inside the World of ESPN’ and it mentioned about how in the early years they were proposing 24 hours of sports telecasting and people questioned them “ who wants to watch 24 hours of sports?” , I think I know the answer to that one!