International I Hate Sports Club

Now, I'm going to try as hard as I can not to be misunderstood here.

See, I came to this website for several reasons, most of them falling into "Let's talk about why this sport are stupid." However, after looking around the forums for a short while, I realized there was little or no thought going into the anti-sports sentiment. A widely used assertion is that sports and sports fans are all mentally inferior. I can tell you first-hand that this is not the case.

For example, college football: many colleges will not allow you in with simply sports skills alone, and even if you do get in a good GPA must be maintained to stay in. And in the end, you can't graduate with football; you need to perform adequately in a major and get a degree in that major to graduate. True, you can just quit and go on to play football in the NFL if you're good enough, but how often does this really happen?

I have many friends who are football fans, and they're quite intelligent people. They're sucked to the TV during a big game, but they turn it off the moment the post-game nonsense comes on. They'll talk about the game afterwards, but they'll talk about other things too. They enjoy the same parts of life as you are I once the football is over.

And then there are the people who play the sports. While there aren't many sports that require brains along with brawn, they are out there, and they are usually the more popular ones. Like football: the line doesn't simply throw themselves at the opposing line, they have to take into account their footing, their balance, and adjust these to keep from being knocked over while at the same time trying to push them back to make an opening in case the QB decides he has to run the ball or hand it off to someone else to run. And the QB needs to gauge whether the ball will make it to a target, and if it does, how likely will it be for the target to make a clean getaway, and if they'll even be able to catch the ball in the first place.

I hate sports for many reasons, but I know for sure that none of those reasons are that sports are idiotic. And yet, that seems to be the main reason for the sports hatred on this site. And when a sports fan (who quickly becomes labeled as "Sports Bore") comes in, trying to understand your point of view, presenting possible challenges to get more insight, they are quickly put down. All sports fans are stereotyped, and called conformists and sheep. You claim they are all stupid, yet I see little intelligence in your responses to them.

Sure, your claims are always well backed up with many examples of idiotic sports fans, oppression of intelligent endeavors in favor of sports, of places and people that place sports above all else. But in my life I've seen that this is the minority.

Like all of you, I too was forced to participate in PE throughout my academic endeavors. But this wasn't intended to humiliate us or impress upon us that sports are necessary. Physical exercise is necessary, and PE's intent is to show us various ways to get this exercise. Throughout my PE experience, we played baseball, dodgeball, tennis, basketball, flag football. We ran track, we lifted weights, we did situps and pushups. These were not presented as being necessary: the overall need to achieve physical well-being was the only thing being drilled into our heads. My teachers sought only to open our horizons to sports and other means of exercise, showing us the various means of becoming physically fit we may or may not enjoy.

I live in Texas, so football was a big part of the high school experience, but the football players never received the preferential treatment that this web ring seems to believe the entire country participates in. Not only did education come first in my school, but the grades of sports players were put under even more careful scrutiny than those of us who were, say, on the computer team. Many on this website have said disparaging things regarding the use of sports as an incentive to do well in school, but that's the thing: for those students who want to play sports, using those sports as an incentive will work for THOSE students. Students who want to do well need no other incentive, and students in other extracurricular groups and teams had similar grade requirements.

Sports fans are stereotyped as being the bullies, the mindless sheep, the couch potatoes, and sports haters are stereotyped as fat, unmanly, nerds. These stereotypes are rarely true, on both sides. I didn't come here to engage in pointless name calling. I came here to participate in discussions such as, say, how people are willing to make it their entire career to try to get a ball to an endzone, knowing that all it takes is one slip, one bad tackle to damage their body and permanently destroy their dreams, not to participate in discussions about how such dreams are idiotic.

I hate sports, but I hate pointless hatred even more. I like the thought behind the creation of this website, but I dislike the lack of thought held within. By joining, I'm hoping to find a way to bring more intelligence and open-mindedness to this sight, so that people who come in questioning our dislike of sports or are simply curious about the reasons behind them will not feel as though they are, say, a minority stepping into a KKK meeting.

Thank you for reading my rant, and I hope nobody misunderstands my intent.

We don't have mindless hatred towards sports. You would see that if you actually read some of the topics on these forums. Everyone on these forums are intelligent except for the sports bores and we have reasons on why we don't like sports. I'm not trying to be mean or anything I am just saying that we don't have mindless hatred towards sports.

I've read quite a few of the threads, and while there are quite a few comments that aren't mindless hatred, it just feels to me that the majority of posts are just flaming towards sports fans, and I feel this is working against the web ring rather than for it.

I understand that you're not trying to be mean: you just feel differently about the behavior of the people on this forum, and I respect your point of view. But I need to see it to believe it.

Welcome to the website, BanWrestlingPlz. I'm just a Moderator in training; so I hope that you will bear with me, as I try to do the best I can. Your point about the initial impression we inadvertently make on sports fans who visit this website is well taken. The problem, though, with many of the sports fans is that they immediately attack us with personal insults; and those who support this website then respond in kind. As someone who experienced bullying as a kid and has a particular religious viewpoint, I have purposely avoided name-calling, and will continue to do so. But as a Moderator I will be stern when I have to be. You should be aware that those who support this website are varied in our backgrounds, as well as our views on issues having nothing to do with sports. Even on the issue of sports, we have different perspectives. There is also the problem that we clearly have had different experiences. The fact that someone has not shared your experiences does not mean that his own are not pertinent. It would be helpful to discuss what might account for these differences. For example, my PE experience was totally different from yours. Sorry, I just noticed the time. I've got to go now. There's actually a lot more I could say, but I've run out of time. I'll have more to say later. I welcome your input.

BanWrestlingPlz wrote:I've read quite a few of the threads, and while there are quite a few comments that aren't mindless hatred, it just feels to me that the majority of posts are just flaming towards sports fans, and I feel this is working against the web ring rather than for it.

I understand that you're not trying to be mean: you just feel differently about the behavior of the people on this forum, and I respect your point of view. But I need to see it to believe it.

OK, maybe, just maybe, not all sports fans are jerks, and maybe, just maybe, not all jocks are bullies.

But I have to say something here . . . . .

Damn! I'm getting tired of chewing the same cabbage over and over again, but here goes.

I have mentioned this two or three times before, I guess I'll just have to mention it again.

When I was in high school, back in 1969, I had this science teacher who was also the school's football coach, and during football season, he was to fucking busy coaching his team of pre-frontally lobotomized baboons to be teaching in my science glass.

So instead, he would set up a movie projector, then turn off the lights, and go out the door to leave us all sitting in the dark, watching a bunch of stupid cartoons, when I wanted to study science.

Then many years later, back in 1996, I knew some teen age kid who went to the very same school that I went to, and he said "I had this science teacher who was really cool! He didn't make us study or anything. He would set up a TV and a VCR, and we got to watch cartoons!" and when I asked him the name of his science teacher, it was the very same teacher I had.

I was once suspended from school because I fail to climb a rope in the gymnasium. Never mind that I had a knee injury when I fell out of a car at the age of 4 and walked with a limp when I was a kid and could not run like the other kids. That was no excuse for my not being able to climb the rope.

Never mind that I was doing well in all of my other subjects and getting good grades, climbing a rope was more important than science and math. So I got suspended from school because I failed to climb a stupid rope.

Then in the 5th grade, I have my first male teacher, and he was super Gung Ho when it came to PE and sports. One day, we are playing basket ball. I made a mistake, can't recall what it was because I don't know jack-shit about basketball, and he grabbed the ball from my hands, and punched me in the stomach with it as hard as he could. It seemed like an eternity before I could catch my breath again. He really enjoyed humiliating me in front of the other kids.

Then one day, our class went to the school library. All the other kids were allowed to check out any book they wanted. I saw this book on Astronomy that I wanted very much, but he would not allow me to have it. When I asked him why, we got into an argument, and he dragged me out into the hallway, grabbed me by the shoulders, pushed me backwards, bashing my head up against the corner of the concrete block wall. For years after that, during my teen age years, I had head aches and dizzy spells.

The following year, that teacher was fired from his teaching job, and after that, he could not get a job teaching anywhere else. A Hell of a lot of good that did me.

There. I just got done, chewing the same cud over and over again! No wonder I'm such a fat cow!!!

Now you can see why I hate sports!

Also, I was bullied around by the jocks in my school, and they were never held accountable for their actions. They could get away with all kinds of shit.

Sports are responsible for the declining quality of education in our schools. All the courses have been dumbed down to make it easier for retarded monkey-boys to get passing grades so they can play football.

And it's a fact, that there are many collage football players who can't read or write beyond the 5th grad level. Back in 1986 I saw on ABC NEWS NIGHTLINE about some collage basketball player who admitted that he could not read beyond the second grade level. One day he got smart, he quit basketball, went back to school to hit the books again and study hard so he could finally make something of his life.

Some of us here, we have a damn good reason for hating sports.

My hatred for sports is not mindless! I am very mindful in my hate for sports, and my hate toward these Macho jocko monkey-boys, having an IQ that is exceeded by their shoe-sizes!

I rest my case!

Mindless hate is not what we're about here. Sometimes some of the posters may have trouble getting their thoughts across in a tactful manner, but there are many clear reasons behind our sports hatred.

Yes you are right we should concentrate on facts or personal experience than generalizing or name-calling. That's what I myself try to do for the most part. You are welcome to join in.
Some posters will have some rants and name-calling...but try to realize they are born out of their own frustration with the issue. (That, and, it is in response to some spam in these boards by trolling sports-lovers.)
And FatMan's stories above give good proof why many of us feel the way we do....I certainly relate to the one about jocks bullying and never being held accountable. That's VERY common!
To try to convince the majority of folks out there that not liking sports is normal is often a never-ending uphill climb. We get frustrated and this forum often provides our only outlet to vent some steam.
So, by all means, if you don't have to vent you can still free to post here fact-based discussions too!

However, I do have to clear up one thing I think your post got wrong:

BanWrestlingPlz wrote:For example, college football: many colleges will not allow you in with simply sports skills alone, and even if you do get in a good GPA must be maintained to stay in. And in the end, you can't graduate with football; you need to perform adequately in a major and get a degree in that major to graduate. True, you can just quit and go on to play football in the NFL if you're good enough, but how often does this really happen?

Sure, there's a minimum to get in the college, but that minimum tends to be lower for athletes at many schools. Also, once there, they are held to lower standards than non-athletes. Everyone I know who has taught college courses agrees: football & basketball jocks are almost always their worst students. Period. They struggle the most to understand the most basic concepts, and usually don't seem to care that much anyways.
Also, they tend to sign up for most easy majors anyways. USA Today even documented this: http://www.usatoday.com/sports/college/ ... over_N.htm and http://www.usatoday.com/sports/college/ ... jors_x.htm Read those articles...they are very good ones.

Yeah, I just finished reading those two articles.

These monkey-boys take a bunch of easy-ass courses so they can get their grades high enough to be in sports.

Like, let's make it really simple for them.

They can be art majors, and all they have to do is make mud-pies and call it sculpting.

(C. S. Lewis said the same thing in his novel, The Screw Tape Letters.)

They have so many extra privileges that the rest of the University students don't have. When I went to collage at NMSU, at the cafeteria, the jocks got double portions of food for the same price that the rest of the students had to pay.

Hell, I say just put them in the zoo and give them raw meat!

I'm sorry! But I can't be polite!

As it says in my signature below, I'm fat and sassy!

I'm a big fat bitch!!! OK???

Okay. Iâ??m back. Opposing points of view about mandatory PE have been expressed in this Forum. (For those of you who have already read my posts and letters about mandatory PE, I know youâ??ve heard me say all this before. Iâ??m just saying this for the benefit of our newcomer.) These differences in opinion should be examined in the light of two facts: (1) School PE is currently going through a period of reform that started only recently (and I have to emphasize the word â??recentlyâ?), and (2) Young students who are forced to take PE come from different backgrounds. You say that your PE experience was positive for you, and I believe that you are telling the truth. I assume that you have read what Fat Man has said about his own PE experience, which was consistently bad; and I believe that he also is telling the truth. There was a critic of this website who accused Fat Man of exaggerating. How would he know? He wasnâ??t even there at Fat Manâ??s high school; and, besides, heâ??s 32 years younger than Fat Man. Can you deny the reality of Fat Manâ??s own experiences? Of course not. Fat Man and I are middle-aged. The PE of our generation was dreaded by those of us who were not athletically inclined. Many of us were humiliated and sometimes bullied, and our physical fitness needs were ignored. I personally know many middle-aged people, both women (including my own wife) and men, whose PE experiences were consistently negative. There was Remedial Math and Remedial English, but no Remedial PE. Weightlifting wasnâ??t even offered. Only competitive sports. This fact cannot be denied by anyone. Some PE classes today are more humane, and some actually provide positive reinforcement for nonathletic boys to become physically fit. I enthusiastically support the movement to reform PE. I compare the very positive experience Iâ??ve had at my health club for a year and a half now (working with a personal trainer on a bodybuilding program) with my boyhood PE experience. The difference is as great as night and day. So one cause of disagreement on this issue is generational. I would like to know if you already had a love for sports when you started taking PE in school. Some boys simply donâ??t have an interest in sports, but traditional PE coaches assume that every boy loves sports. You talk about negative stereotyping. Boys who have no interest in sports are considered to be wimps, even though there is no connection between physical strength or athletic prowess, on the one hand, and moral courage, on the other. Boys who have no interest in sports are frequently accused of having homosexual tendencies, as I was when I was a kid. This negative stereotype is even worse than the â??dumb jockâ? stereotype (which I donâ??t believe in either). What Iâ??ve just said is not an expression of mindless hatred. I believe that I have been civil. Letâ??s continue this dialogue.

BanWrestlingPlz wrote:See, I came to this website for several reasons, most of them falling into "Let's talk about why this sport are stupid." However, after looking around the forums for a short while, I realized there was little or no thought going into the anti-sports sentiment. A widely used assertion is that sports and sports fans are all mentally inferior. I can tell you first-hand that this is not the case.

This is true, yes. It doesn't help the sports fans' cases when truly moronic meatheads write garbage into the Letters section (see Goyankees' and Struob's letters) or post crap in the forums (see our favourite troll, Samdaman/Spammy/Samantha).

The sports fans we are against are those types -- the ones who demand that we worship sports.

BanWrestlingPlz wrote:I have many friends who are football fans, and they're quite intelligent people. They're sucked to the TV during a big game, but they turn it off the moment the post-game nonsense comes on. They'll talk about the game afterwards, but they'll talk about other things too. They enjoy the same parts of life as you are I once the football is over.

I understand this. My Dad is a football (soccer to those outside the UK) fan and he's an extremely intelligent person. He knows a helluva lot about computers and is into video games. Not as much as me, but I'll say this -- right now he's playing through Gears of War 2 for the umpteenth time!

BanWrestlingPlz wrote:And when a sports fan (who quickly becomes labeled as "Sports Bore") comes in, trying to understand your point of view, presenting possible challenges to get more insight, they are quickly put down. All sports fans are stereotyped, and called conformists and sheep. You claim they are all stupid, yet I see little intelligence in your responses to them.

They are labelled Sports Bores if they come on droning at us about how we're wrong and basically trying to make us feel bad about not liking/hating sports.

There has been one sports fan who came on who asked us calmly and politely why we hated sports. We responded in kind and after a few responses, he was given the title Civil Sportsman. You've met our "Reformed Sportsman" already. He used to be part of the Sports Bore group, but has changed his tune, thankfully. We welcome him here.

However, when Detroitsportsfan08 joined and asked more or less civilly, a lot of the members needlessly insulted him. By the time I arrived (the day after he registered, I think), it had turned into a heated argument. This was uncalled for. We are currently setting up the rules for this board -- keep watch, people -- about giving sports fans a chance and not insulting them until they start it.


Much of the rest of your post I've skipped. Not because I don't think it's relevant or doesn't deserve a response, but because I don't a good response to give.

BanWrestlingPlz wrote:I hate sports, but I hate pointless hatred even more. I like the thought behind the creation of this website, but I dislike the lack of thought held within. By joining, I'm hoping to find a way to bring more intelligence and open-mindedness to this sight, so that people who come in questioning our dislike of sports or are simply curious about the reasons behind them will not feel as though they are, say, a minority stepping into a KKK meeting.

I will admit that we've often generalised and stereotyped jocks and sports fans. Some of the stuff we say in jest, but many members truly mean what they type. I'll let you know right now that Fat Man is one of those members. He's definitely not afraid to voice his opinions. Sometimes this is good, sometimes this is bad. After what he's went through, I think this website is a good place for him to vent his pent-up frustrations. I'm hoping he'll try to control his emotions, though. Not to call him out or anything.

BanWrestlingPlz wrote:Thank you for reading my rant, and I hope nobody misunderstands my intent.

Same here.

Well, I will be polite toward BanWrestlingPlz even if I don't agree with everything he says.

He does asked legitimate questions concerning "mindless" hate, but the hate I feel toward sports is not mindless but very mindful.

I'm glad that some schools are attempting to reform PE, and I wish them every success, after all, exercise is important for health reasons.

Yeah, I admit I'm a fat-ass, but I do try to get out every other day to do some walking, but it's not easy, having arthritis in my ankles and having to walk with a cane.

And as I had mentioned before a couple of times, I did take a PE course when I was in collage. It was in weight training. I liked it, because I did not have to compete against anybody else, but I could set my own goals and working on improving myself.

I really enjoyed pumping iron. The leg-press exercise machine was my favorite, and I got to where I could leg-press 650 pounds, which was the entire stack of irons on the machine.

Of course, I was not able to improve my upper-body strength very much. I have the more Endomorphic body-type, having a larger body and shorter limbs in proportion to my height, and being relatively smaller in the chest, and broader in the hips, so I havbe more lower-body strength.

But even though I could not increase my upper-body strength by very much, I still enjoyed pumping iron. I only wish they would have had something like that in high school. There are many fund physical things one can do besides competitive sports, and pumping iron is the best exercise for us fat guys.

I was the heaviest student in my class that semester, and I had the biggest thighs. I'm somewhat pear-shaped being broader in the hips, so that semester, I had the greatest lower-body strength, while another student who weighed a lot less than I did, he was broader in the chest and had a lot more upper-body strength.

I could never hope to match his upper-body strength, and he was never able to match my lower-body strength.

So, I think noncompetitive PE should be the focus in our schools and less emphases on competitive sports.

But I am against mandatory PE. In the past, it has been used as a "weeding out" process to separate the athletes from the non-athletes and the results has been that the non-athletes are held up for ridicule and shame.

Anyway, I will be polite toward BanWrestlingPlz but as for the other sports bores and monkey-boys, I going to come down on them like white on rice!

I don't like and I don't care about sports. I don't care who beats who or who scored a goal, as there are more important things going on in the world. I do hate the cult of crazies, who act like it is the most important thing on the planet, because it is just a game. I hate what sports has become, like some sort of cult, where people goad you for not following it. I hate the fact that it is shoved in our face every five minutes. I think the world would be a better place if sports and sports fans were all sent to live on the moon. I sometimes wonder what the world would be like without sports, it would be a utopia.

Lewis wrote:I don't like and I don't care about sports. I don't care who beats who or who scored a goal, as there are more important things going on in the world. I do hate the cult of crazies, who act like it is the most important thing on the planet, because it is just a game. I hate what sports has become, like some sort of cult, where people goad you for not following it. I hate the fact that it is shoved in our face every five minutes. I think the world would be a better place if sports and sports fans were all sent to live on the moon. I sometimes wonder what the world would be like without sports, it would be a utopia.

ABSOLUTELY!!!

These monkey-boys are responsible for the declining quality of education in our schools. Thanks to these monkey-boys, the USA is turning into just another third world Banana Republic!

But sending sports fans and monkey-boys out to live on the moon, that is much too expensive. You have to build pressurized colony domes on the moon and keep sending them provisions just to keep them all alive.

It would be much cheaper, despite the greater distance, to launch their ships into the sun and be done with them for keeps!

I donâ??t mean to belabor a point, and I certainly donâ??t mean to be strident. But I need to make an observation about my generationâ??s PE. In 1960 when I was in the fourth grade, the unsupervised recess that I had enjoyed was replaced by mandatory PE. I still remember the claim that was made by the adult instructors that very year. We were told that the purpose of mandatory PE was to promote physical fitness, but the real purpose was to promote sports. Nonathletic boys were forced to participate in competitive team sports, regardless of how poorly they played. Any boys (such as myself) who obviously were poor at playing some ball game were never given any assistance or help of any kind to help them improve their performance. No such offer was ever made to me or any of the other nonathletic guys I knew. Those boys who were the most physically unfit, especially those who were scrawny (such as myself) or overweight, were not put on any kind of a physical fitness regimen. They did not receive help of any kind. They were simply ignored, at the same time that they were forced to take a class that was of no benefit to them whatsover. So the claim that the purpose of mandatory PE was to promote physical fitness was both hollow and hypocritical. I donâ??t know of a single man of my generation who was either scrawny or overweight when he was a kid, but became physically fit because he was forced to take PE in school. Iâ??m not saying that this never happened. There may have been a kind-hearted coach here and there who had the compassion to personally show interest in a nonathletic boy in one of his PE classes who was struggling and clearly miserable, as I was. Iâ??m just saying that I personally donâ??t know of a single instance of this having ever happened. That is the point I was trying to make.

I have a single disagreement with Fat Man concerning why college athletes are given double portions of food, but I could be wrong. In my bodybuilding regimen, I have to be sure to eat enough food so that I will end the day with a calorie surplus, which is needed for the build-up of muscle tissue. In other words, I try to avoid a calorie deficit. What this means is that the dietary needs of athletes are different from those of nonathletes, hence the double portions, which is what their bodies need. Somebody please tell me if Iâ??m wrong about this.

There were some days when after they had fed all the jocks (slopped the pigs) there was hardly enough food for the rest of us students, and some days when we went around hungry, so we often paid for almost nothing!

I could just as easily say that science and math majors should have been given double portions of fish because fish is good for the brain.

Since monkey-boys don't have any brains, and are just retarded house-plants, then they can just stick their feet into a pot of shit and take root and maybe beautiful flowers will sprout from their scalps!

I'm still waiting to hear why BanWrestlingPlz hates sports. He says he hates sports but he's used up a lot of ink telling us why we're pretty much wrong in everything we say and defending about every aspect of sport there is.

What is it about sports that you hate?