A last attempt to be positive about sports

In an attempt to find a subject for my last column, I went through a checklist in my head of everything that I’ve covered this semester.

The business of sports, sexism and homophobia in sports and the recent Miami Dolphins fiasco have all been subjected to my criticism.

It took me a few minutes, but I realized one very important thing: for something that I love so dearly, I haven’t written one positive thing about sports.

Maybe it’s because there seems to be more bad things going on in sports than there are good things. Perhaps it’s because I just notice the short-fallings and never the successes happening in sports.

Whatever the reason — and I still don’t know what that is — it goes against my usual ‘look on the bright side’ nature.

So, as an attempt to even things out in the grand scheme of things, I will focus on what I love about sports.

I love that a team (or franchise) is something that can bring so many people together and be celebrated.

Young or old, thin or fat, loud-mouthed or shy. For the span of the game, all differences are put aside. For the most part.

Sports, particularly Raiders football and San Jose Sharks hockey, are bonding moments for my dad and I. We like to discuss the latest Raiders game (or, in the offseason, whether we like their moves) and whether or not we saw that Sharks goal.

My grandma, though a Niners fan, is a Sharks fan through and through. She always texts me after a Sharks win to celebrate — or if it’s the playoffs and we lose, to commiserate.

Discussing my favorite teams is an automatic go-to for conversations. I know automatically that I’ll have something in common with someone wearing gear of my favorite team.

I love being able to strike up a conversation with someone and see why he or she is so passionate about a team.

Some people arrive to their fandom by birth — I’m one of them. Some stumble across the team and like the players or their style of play.

At the risk of going on a tangent, I will say that the idea of a bandwagon is ridiculous. People jump on the bandwagon when they become fans of teams that are doing well. When a team’s doing well, they get a lot more national coverage. More people are familiar with the team. It’s pretty obvious that everyone loves to be a fan of a winning team, but a lot more people see a winning team than a terrible team.

Please, people, calm down and quit talking down on new fans. You aren’t any better just because you’ve been a fan longer.

Anyways, I digress.

After a semester of writing about everything wrong with the world of sports — and let’s admit, there’s a lot of that — I’ve now found that it’s surprisingly difficult to write something good about it.

And, yes, even in my quest to be positive I had to bring up how ridiculous the whole “bandwagon” idea is. I couldn’t help myself.

I look forward to the days when the positive outweighs the negative. When there is less hatred and inequality in sports than there is now. When people can support their team and worry less about the allegiance of the fan next to them.

I guess the biggest positive of this article is that I think this is all possible. I think one day all fans will be able to enjoy watching a world that isn’t wracked by these issues, at least not to such an extent.