A big part of who I am can be summarized in one Q&A response. The question would be, “What sports do you like or watch?” The best answer I could give you is “Yes.” However, I have had to ask myself another question because of this: “If a passion can be isolating and lonely, is it worth pursuing?”
Living in the New York City area all my life, I was easily drawn to some of the various sports teams and leagues in the area and the fandom culture that makes New York sports unique. I have always been happy to discuss and learn more about statistics, storylines, rankings and controversies across the dozens of sports leagues I have come across from California to Korea.
However, despite my sports enthusiasm, finding like-minded people to share in my fervent passion has been difficult. I am what you might call a “hardcore” fan, the opposite of which would be known as a “casual” fan—someone who may watch or be somewhat aware of the happenings in a sport but is not nearly as locked in on the history and developments of the sport as I and others may be. For better or worse, I have been surrounded by many casuals throughout my life.
My dad, who quickly introduced me to baseball and American football when I was young, has shared my love for the New York Mets and Jets for decades. Keeping up to date and staying interested in all the recent games and news headlines in so many different leagues was not a priority for him as it became for me, though. This was evident in 2021 when the New York Knicks made the playoffs for the first time in eight years. I, a Brooklyn Nets fan, learned for the first time that my father not only watched the NBA but was a fan of the Knicks. Although I believe he was jumping on the bandwagon after years of miserable Knicks performances, what also contributed to my surprise of my dad’s basketball fandom was that he did not invest much time keeping up with it as he would with his other interests.
Simultaneously, as my father kept his basketball interests quiet, my friends and peers were the opposite through eighth grade. Basketball was always talked about, played or watched by my classmates. I developed a love for basketball thanks to them, but for the most part, no one else was interested in playing or talking about any sport other than basketball and the NBA.
Situations like these led to me feeling there was a gap between others and me due to my varying interests in the sports industry. In sports, I would much rather have someone rooting against me and my team than someone who is indifferent, but unfortunately, I have had a lot of the latter. In 2015, when the Mets, my favorite sports team of all, made it to the World Series for the first time in my life, no one in my circles, besides my parents, was even aware of or cared enough to share in the excitement. During the 2018 Winter Olympics in PyeongChang, South Korea, no one I knew cared about the performance-enhancing drug scandal that Russian athletes and, allegedly, the Russian government participated in, which had me captivated throughout the investigation.
I would often question in my mind why people were not nearly as intrigued by these things and how they could be content with being ignorant about the wider sports world that I cherished. Although initially disappointed by the large gap in interests between myself and those around me, I learned to appreciate the uniqueness of my perspective. There's nothing cool or beneficial about having the same interests and personalities as most people. Being able to look at things uniquely and show greater appreciation of aspects that others do not consider can make you more valuable.
I have been able to take my somewhat unique appreciation for many sports and turn it into a future for myself in addition to continual enjoyment. My appreciation of sports storylines and analytics has helped me forge a career pathway toward sports journalism. What I initially viewed as a source of social isolation turned into a way for me to be confident and sure in what I liked, was good at and could do as a livelihood, things that many college students have not been blessed with.
While I still have a lot of friends who are casual fans at best or indifferent at worst, I have also gained a lot of friends who have diverse interests in sports and in other things that I have been able to learn from as well. If you feel pressured to conform to a certain interest, belief or lifestyle, remember that living in the “gaps,” just like hitting a baseball in the gaps of defenders in a game, is often a truly special way to live.
The Student Movement is the official student newspaper of Andrews University. Opinions expressed in the Student Movement are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the editors, Andrews University or the Seventh-day Adventist church.