How I came to love watching sports

Around this time last year, I attended my first sports game at Hopkins, a baseball game. I had friends on the baseball team who had been encouraging me to come to a game for weeks. It just never ended up happening because I’d always find some excuse.

Truth is I was a little nervous. I had no idea what people did at baseball games, especially people like me who didn’t even know the rules. Would they judge me for not understanding anything? Did people like me even bother going? And it was too cold to sit in those bleachers anyway.

So I put off going, until this one ridiculously beautiful morning. My roommate and her boyfriend were, well, doing their thing, so I couldn’t stay in my room. It was too nice to even think about studying indoors. At this point I might as well go to the game, right? Clambering up the stairs into the stadium, I saw my friends waving me over, and I sat down with them.

Let me start by saying that I understood absolutely nothing. I distinctly remember asking my friend what the white diamond-y thing the guy hit the bat on was. It was home plate. I got mocked mercilessly for that question. Even as they laughed at my unfathomable baseball stupidity, I realized that I wasn’t being judged at all.

Throughout the rest of the game, I’d continue asking questions, get mocked for them, receive explanations and then ask again. Over the course of little more than a month of going to baseball games, I started to understand how it worked.

Going to these games, I grew closer to a lot of the athletes, and in what seemed like an instant, they became family. Once my sophomore year started, I was going to every sports game. They became part of my routine.

It wasn’t until the volleyball game that decided who won the Centennial Conference, though, that I realized how invested I’d become. This game was intense. It went up to five sets, which is the closest a competition can get in volleyball. It was only at the end of those three hours that I realized I had been digging my nails into my palms the whole time.

When the volleyball team went to their following tournament, I was in class, completely unable to pay attention. I had the live stats up on my screen, and was completely transfixed. Slowly, somehow, without my realizing, a little group had formed of people who had angled their chairs ever so slightly toward my screen. They were all watching it too.

That day showed me how sports can bring people together, even over state lines...

On Tuesday, my friends and I spontaneously decided to go on a 58-mile road trip to Gettysburg College to watch the women’s basketball playoffs. The team had no idea we were coming, and their faces lit up as soon as we walked in dressed in all our Hopkins glory.

It was a close game, but eventually we lost. Two of our friends on the team hung back to tell us how much they appreciated us coming out. Yes, they had just lost a game, but they still meant every word, and that’s what I admire about them.

In high school, I had absolutely no interest in sports. I really don’t know what changed between then and now. Maybe it’s my friends or maybe it’s that I enjoy not only the game but the people I watch it with. Maybe I had no idea what I was missing out on all my life. Maybe the energy and the zeal of the people on the court or field inspires me every single time I go out to watch a game.

So come this Saturday, I’ll be in the baseball stadium for seven hours watching two consecutive games in the pouring rain. Part of why I would choose to do that to myself is because the people on the field aren’t just baseball players to me, they’re some of my closest friends.

But there’s another part of me that sees their passion and understands why they care so much. It’s that part of me that has started to care too.