An Unabashed Sports Family

I know that Sports Illustrated may not make the weekly reading list for many of you, but the latest Point After article by Chris Ballard is the funniest thing I have read in a while. Read it here. To summarize, it's about a group of seven-, eight, and nine-year olds who hold a draft for their own Fantasy Football league and the hilarities that ensue. To me, the article is particularly entertaining because it could have been written about my own family and children.

To say we are a sports family is an understatement. My husband is a typical avid male sports fan. No more elaboration needed, right? And I myself am also a huge sports fan. I grew up in Corvallis, OR and my dad and I were regulars at Oregon State basketball and football games. My husband likes to tell the story of how I gave him a sports quiz before I would agree to go out with him. Absolutely true story. Thankfully he passed!

Now, the torch has been passed to my son. The first thing he does every morning is log onto espn.com to watch the previous nights' highlights. He then checks the latest stats on his favorite players and teams, league standings, and if there is time, totally useless facts such as the time he informed me that it was Dustin Pedroia's birthday that day. He can recite not only wins and losses, but also specific scores of games long after I have forgotten which team won the game. He is also our resident keeper of batting averages, longest touchdowns, and colleges attended by his favorite players.

So, in an effort to channel his passion for stats, we started our own family Fantasy Football league this year. Yes, we had a draft and yes, my daughter who quickly lost interest after drafting Adrian Peterson and Tom Brady, is blowing the rest of us away so far. While the rest of us consulted magazine and website player rankings, my daughter simply breezed by the table when it was her time to draft and pointed to a name on the list or a player pictured. Once she even announced, "I want to draft a Miami Dolphin!" This fail-proof technique netted her not only the two players named above, but also Andre Johnson and DeAngelo Williams. If you are not familiar with these names, they are fabulous picks.

Sadly, the only down side to all this sports euphoria in our house is that neither of my children have chosen to root for any of the teams that my husband and I love. Whereas we cheer for hometown teams such as the Seattle Seahawks or Mariners or maybe the Detroit Tigers and Pistons, our son loves the Boston Red Sox and the Celtics while our daughter taunts us with the New York Yankees and Minnesota Vikings. Oh well, I guess you can't win 'em all.

Image courtesy of Flickr and SD Dirk