Being A Working Square Has Destroyed My Sports Fan Life

The last post I wrote for this site was over a month ago, and it was immediately following the Boston Celtics and Miami Heat Game Seven contest when the Heat topped Boston to move onto the NBA Finals.  Prior to that, I wrote a post about Kevin Garnett.  Before THAT, I wrote a post about Floyd Mayweather before his fight against Miguel Cotto, and before that, there was a post written right after I completed Shaun T.'s 60-day maniacal workout, Insanity.

That’s four posts in slightly over three months, a disgraceful and pathetic output for a man who takes pride in writing. After racking my brain over and over and attempting to rationalize why I haven’t written much, I can only come up with one conclusion:

Becoming a grown-up and a working square has destroyed my sports fan life.

Basically, I’ve gotten old. Gone are the days of staying up past 2, 3 and 4 in the morning, sleeping for three hours and being at work at 8 a.m. to take on the tasks of the day. Those days have been gone for the past several months. Instead of staying up late, I am in the bed around 8 every night. If it’s not a Friday or a Saturday night, forget it. I’m carrying my ass to bed early.

Sure, I may not go to sleep right then and there, but the fact that I am out of my clothes, in the bed and contemplating sleep basically means that I miss many elements that make the game what it is, and since it’s long been established that watching Sportscenter does not replace watching the game, my sports fan life has pretty much gone to hell.

During the 2012 NBA Playoffs, the struggle to stay awake to watch games every night was ridiculous. Ed chastised me for falling asleep during the Oklahoma City Thunder’s second-round matchup against the Los Angeles Lakers and finally got fed up and cursed me out for falling asleep during the Western Conference Finals against the San Antonio Spurs. When Kevin Durant erupted in the fourth quarter to bring the Thunder back from the dead in that series, I was sound asleep. When Ed was bouncing off the Twitter walls the next morning, I replied to him that I missed it because I went to bed. To him, going to work in the morning is no reason to miss a playoff game  hell, any game for that matter — and he is pretty much right.

Being a working stiff (shout-out to The Rev for the term) has pretty much zapped the life out of me being a responsible sports fan, and this is coming from someone who is around sports all day long. My job involves working with student-athletes, and I have endless Hoshitoshis at my disposal. However, it’s one thing to watch the action in the midst; it’s another to catch it the next day. It just isn’t the same, and when I do get caught up, I still feel left behind.

With the NFL season looming, a serious test is on the horizon. Can a proper balance be established to do my work, study for this damn doctoral program and be the sports fan that I have been for the past I refuse to mention the age that I am turning soon years? Does this letter merely serve as another reminder that Father Time is approaching and that it is now even having an effect on how I view the game? Will there be nights when a highly anticipated Monday Night Football matchup will end for me midway through the first quarter, because I’ll be too tired to function the next day? Of course, pride says no way in hell that ever happens, but with the way things are going, the life of being a working square has taken a toll on something I covet and desperately love … and that’s being a fan of the game.

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