My name is Caroline, and I couldn't care less that the Pats lost last night.
There. I said it. I also don't care that the Giants won. I enjoy the playing of sports and even the occasional viewing of my own progeny playing some type of sport as long as I don't have to stand in the cold. But that's it. I just don't get sports fan-dom. I suspect this is connected to the fact that I am a non-Bat-Mitzvahed, non-baptized, half-Jew-half-Protestant, but I have no data to back that up. I'm just not built to be a joiner.
Which is why it's so ironic that I keep ending up at big sports institutions in big sports cities. I used to teach at Ohio State, and there were whole football weekends I wouldn't leave my house because I was scared I'd get hit by a burning couch. Now here I am living in Boston, teaching at Doug Flutie's alma mater (see my previous post explaining how I now know that Doug Flutie went to BC and not, in fact, Ohio State), watching the emotions of everyone around me rise and fall around major sporting events.
Let me clarify something: I am not a culture snob. Yes, I teach Shakespeare for a living, but I do not judge people for being sports fans, or getting pleasure from watching "double rainbow" man, or any television show whatsoever. I am sure that Shakespeare would have been a huge Twitterer, and probably would be writing for "Modern Family" right now if he had been born in 1983. And I know he would have loved that half-time show and been trying to get into the after party to meet Madonna.
It's not you, sports fans, it's me. Please don't hurt me.
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