Ask HN: Anyone else hate sports with a passion?

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41548124

10 19 2 years ago

news.ycombinator.com

Grew up in an East Coast city with no major sports teams. Parents and family wasn’t into sports. Friends weren’t into sports. At school we were forced to play sports and bullied by the lower achieving students and coaches when I couldn’t play at their level or understand what they were saying. Never understood the arbitrary calls made by coaches/officials. I find almost anything interesting EXCEPT sports.

uberman• 2 years ago

I'm sorry that it is not your thing. For my kids it is their thing and it has been great for them and my eldest will play d1 soon.

For you it is sports, for someone else it could be that they cant see the value of music or theater or debate. To each thier own as they say.

michelsedgh• 2 years ago

Im in the same boat, I have no interest, but when I talked to people who enjoy it, it feels more like a religion than sports. That has something to do with its appeal

billconan• 2 years ago

same. I never liked sports. can't understand the meaning of a group of people chasing a ball.

PaulHoule• 2 years ago

I used to, now I don’t.

I think youth sports can be really great for people but a lot of people have a bad experience or don’t get the opportunity and that’s a problem. (A friend of mine has thought a lot about how to run a youth soccer team that develops the best players but is still a lot of fun for the average kid). Bitching about the refs’ calls is a ‘game within a game’ that players, coaches and fans all indulge in. India and Pakistan could have had a nuclear war but instead they have the greatest sports rivalry in the world.

Last year I was getting bored doing photography and decided to try sports photography because my office overlooks the sport complex. Since then I’ve attended almost any kind of match at the college level, met a lot of people, learned a lot and had a great time. I still can’t stand to watch baseball on TV but the new facility my Uni is fan-friendly and intimate and I enjoy the smells and sensory experiences.

cdaringe• 2 years ago

Sport: an activity involving physical exertion and skill in which an individual or team competes against another or others for entertainment.

A few observations:

1. Exertion is an unavoidable part of the human condition. Golf is a sport. Axe throwing, sport. Nascar/f1, sports. 2. Competition. Competing to some feels like fighting and has negative connotations. I don’t compete much, but having competed countless times in my life. 99.9%, it’s been in the spirit of entertainment and not judgment 3. Entertainment.

Do i despise sports? I could rephrase to: do i despise competition based entertainment? Answer, no, i cherish it. My guess OP is that you—like me—don’t like conventional sports in your country? Baseball football … snoozefest! Surely there is SOME sporting you cherish. I’m into cycling, the disc/frisbee games. Replace sport with “hobby” and ask “is there a competitive hobby im into?” Maybe on ESPN “The Ocho”? eSports? …competitive puzzles?

n2dasun• 2 years ago

I wasn't a big fan as a kid because I never felt like I had talent at it, and my poor performance would make me feel like a failure, especially when I could see disappointment on the faces of my pickup game teammates.

In college I did sports medicine as an extracurricular activity and spent lots of time preparing and rehabbing athletes, talking with them, and also watching the sports right from the sideline, and I developed an understanding of the stakes and passion and decisions involved.

I've developed a board gaming obsession over the past few years, so I notice strategy in a lot of areas now, and I can firmly say that I can respect and enjoy the strategy in a game now. I also have become a huge fan of youth sports as a parent, seeing how desperately they need activity and time with their peers for their development, even more so than when I was their age.

The only thing I just don't really get about sports is the fervor. I don't have it in me to commit to a team or player and track entire careers, have arguments, refer to the home team's performance in the second person ("we", "us"). I will gladly watch a sports movie or documentary, though, and occasionally a game (preferably as close to the field as possible)

aosaigh• 2 years ago

It sounds more like you don't like people liking sports, rather than you disliking it yourself. People like different things. If you can't see why people like sports, you should spend more time figuring that out rather than dismissing them.

not_your_vase• 2 years ago

Watching it? Not a fan at all. Never was. I don't hate it with a passion, but it doesn't move me at all (I haven't even seen a minute of the Olympics, nor of the football championships in the past decade).

I also hated doing sports - I was a fat heavy smoker for most of my life. But about 5-ish years ago I became a health freak, which also involved starting to do some exercises. I hated it in the first year+, it was a real chore. But as I got better gradually, it also grew on me slowly. Today I can't even imagine a day without a good sweaty workout...

vik0• 2 years ago

Do you dislike sports or fitness as a broad category that includes sports?

vunderba• 2 years ago

Your post is a little broad but a lot of your hatred seems to stem from an unfortunate environment - to which I'm sorry to hear that you had such a rough experience.

To me it sounds like you just don't like "ORGANIZED SPORTS". Have you tried something a little more individually involved such as tennis / ping-pong / martial arts / etc.?

My heuristic for personal enjoyment of a sport is that I must directly interact with the related equipment for a minimum of 30% of the time. That immediately rules out most organized sports such as football or baseball. Ultimate frisbee is contingent on a maximum of four vs four people.

I'm just not a fan of spending vast amounts of time running up and down a field waiting for the opportunity to potentially participate. I can already do that - it's called running.

js4ever• 2 years ago

Same here, absolutely zero interest for that, even Olympics. Since always.

alberth• 2 years ago

It might be hard to do … but it might help to separate your (horrible) experience, from sports itself.

If someone experienced what you did, it wouldn’t matter if it was sports or anything else (band, karate, even programming) … that’s clearly not the intended experience.

I’m sorry to hear what you went through.

John23832• 2 years ago

It’s ok to not like athletic pursuits, but what does this have to do with hackernews?

Ancalagon• 2 years ago

Do you hate them because you were forced to do them? Do you also hate board games and video games? At the end of the day most team sports are just a very large board game where people’s bodies are the pieces (there might be some skill involved too hah).

brudgers• 2 years ago

bullied by the lower achieving students and coaches when I couldn’t play at their level or understand what they were saying

Skilled athletes might have had a similar experience with academics. Excuses to treat people badly abound. Imagine how it was for poor students who were not good at sports. Good luck.

throwitaway1123• 2 years ago

It sounds like you have an aversion to sports because you were forced to participate in them as a child, which is completely understandable. If someone had coerced you into the school's drama program you might find theater revolting as an adult as well.

It might help to think of sports less as "people playing a simple game" and more as "a demonstration of human athleticism at the highest level". The game is just a pretext. When you watch table tennis, you're viewing people with some of the most finely honed fast twitch muscle fibers, reflexes, and hand eye coordination in the world demonstrate their skills, not just people bouncing a ball back and forth across a table.

You might also enjoy the data analysis aspect of sports. Sports are increasingly being dictated by statistics. It's somewhat cliche at this point to recommend it, but if you haven't already, it might be worth watching the movie Moneyball (or reading the book it's based on).

big-green-man• 2 years ago

I like sports, not spectator sports. Sports exist to be played, not watched religiously. It's one thing for you to watch your kid or husband or wife play, sitting down watching a TV show is off putting to me.

When I'm around men that talk sports teams, wear sports jerseys and that, I just kind of zone out. It's just a circus to me. I get that it can be a fun time. I don't get why someone would absorb it (or any fandom really) into their identity. Very strange thing to me.

Also, I'm convinced that all professional sports are fixed and that there's a lot more going on off camera than we think. I think that's true of anything worth a lot of money that happens in the public eye.

gaws• 2 years ago

What does this have to do with tech?

Bobaso• 2 years ago

Team ball sport are not everything. There is a lot of sport to try, hopefully you will find your fit. Some inspiration. for you : Climbing, hiking, weightlifting, slacklining, biking, paragliding, running

Ask HN: Anyone else hate sports with a passion?

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