My Other Half's Non-Nerd Half

I'm sitting on a gold mine.

 

I hadn't seen the implications of the Big B's sports obsession in a positive light before the NCAA Championships.

 

Before that it was by turns annoying, frustrating, wince-inducing and in many ways, impossible to understand.

 

I can understand obsession over something you really love. Reading is my drug of choice and the flavor has been sci-fi and fantasy for a very long time now. I read other genres occasionally but always veer back into swords & sorcery geekdom.

 

The Big B's love for sports? It goes beyond. Simply beyond.

 

I tried comparing it with my own obsession.

 

• Football would be his fantasy genre, the place where his deepest love and passion resides.
• Baseball would take on the mantle of sci-fi as next to the heart, that different but also wonderful thing.
• Golf would be like a good mystery...if done well it can be very fun.
• Hockey falls into the classic genre space--not read often but the good ones never leave your heart.
• Basketball would be his equivalent of regular fiction, something Jodi Picoult-esque. Very "meh" and can take it or leave it, but if nothing better's around it will do.
• College basketball would be like...reading a non-racy romance novel (what's the point? I only read romances for the naughty parts and without those, most leave a lot to be desired in the way of plot).

 

Wait a minute. I'm pretty sure he doesn't even like basketball that much, let alone college basketball. I can't even think of a time when he was watching college basketball, let alone enthused about it.

 

But it's still enough to get him cursing, pleading, crying, shouting and gesturing violently at the TV while one of his teams play. From whence does this passion come?

 

Perhaps it's because football season has been over for awhile, and baseball season is just starting. Or maybe because this championship only comes once a year.

Or maybe, just maybe, it's because he gets to bet on the outcome and fill out these puzzling things referred to as "boards" or maybe it was "brackets"?

Whatever the reason, the past few weeks I've had to endure his shouted imprecations at the TV while he alternately moans and groans in despair, or shouts and gasps with glee.

I know he can't care about the teams that much as evidenced from last night's conversation between the three of us (me, him, and the flatscreen):

The Big B: Come on! You're killin' me here!
Me: Who's killing you?
Him: The refs! They're trying to ruin my life!
Me: Surely they're just doing their job honey.
Him: NO! They're trying to screw me, they're doing this to keep the score close to make it a close game.
TV: *sounds of sneakers squeaking, crowd cheering, whistles blowing*
Me: Wouldn't they actually be trying to screw over the team, not you?
Him: *glares* No! This is Vegas messin' with the refs to shave points for their betting spreads. Argh!

At which point I exited because it was clear that the TV was getting more of his ire than me, and that's fine by me!

This man has never heard of an indoor voice, let alone possessed one. That's okay, because I'm loud too and can keep up decibel for decibel, most of the time. That and I've learned to tune him out (shhhh, don't give away my secrets. He reads my blog very infrequently).

Then something he was saying last night finally penetrated through my anti-sports-rant wall.

There's money riding on the outcome? This is the last game to decide it? There's almost $400 on the line if this game is won by the team in white?

Back up...money that could buy me new boots, or a nice dinner at Benihanas, or BOOKS?

Who knew? Certainly I never thought sports would be useful to me in this way, ever.

So that's why last night, as I was in the office contemplating my homework for my Quality Management class (statistics! Statistics are the basis of quality, the more woe is me!) I found myself keeping an ear open for B's shouting, and actually found myself shouting right along with him, "Go U-Conn!"

Well okay, maybe when I said "Go U-Conn" I was half expecting to be cheering the wrong team. That happens often, which is why I usually resort to cheering the team whose colors go better together.

Who knows? Maybe it was my half-hearted cheer that roused the Connecticut team. Maybe it was karma finally paying the Big B back for all the rotten poker hands he's been dealt in the past two years. Whatever the reason, U-Conn won that all-important game.

I'm sure they're very happy.

But more importantly, the Big B WON. Apparently if you do this right, you can make MONEY off of sports.

Well push me over with a phoenix feather, I have no idea how he did it (seeing as how he doesn't actually follow college b-ball) but he did.

Perhaps this is the answer to the puzzle.

 

It's the money. That's why this sudden love of college b-ball, when college sports anything was never that big a deal.

See what I mean? Diversity is good!

Even if that means you married a half-geek, half-jock. After all, jocks are people too. And sometimes they can come in handy.