When I chose to take Sports Writing, I expected to fumble my way through the class, learning sports lingo that I could use at future dinner parties. The first few weeks, I sat in class confused and disoriented, trying subtly to look up names of athletes and terms like the ‘Pro Bowl’ on my phone. Then God sent me a secret weapon: a boyfriend.
I began dating Jon on a Saturday night. We attended a party together, at which he wore a Detroit Tigers hat. He met my eyes across the room and walked over. Jon was obviously nervous and began to make small talk.
“So, do you have a favorite sports team?” he asked.
I immediately saw the utility of this man. I envisioned late nights with him as he looked over my pieces for bad errors. He could explain the difference between a linebacker and the left tackle. Most importantly, however, he could pick my teams for the NCAA basketball bracket.
Last year, I wrote a story regarding President Larry Arnn winning the NCAA bracket Professor John Miller had set up for his Sports Writing Class. When basketball season came around, I dreaded the day I would have to fill out mine.
Fortunately for me, Jon sat down and examined the bracket that I ignorantly made.
“Emmaline, you can’t just pick all the teams from your home state of California and think that they will win,” he admonished me. “Let’s pick some Michigan teams.”
While he made a few corrections, he let me keep Kansas (my arbitrarily chosen favorite team) as the ultimate winner. As we both practice Catholicism, we also chose to keep Notre Dame in the running longer than the team will probably last.
My little sister wanted me to date a wealthy man. My mother wanted me to date a Catholic. My friends wanted me to date someone to buy us booze. I’ve learned the best man looks good even when he rolls his eyes when I ask if there is a difference between the Big 10 and the PAC 10.
