Not a sports fan
18/09/23 02:09
Our son completed his Masters of Library Science (MLS) degree at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. When he was a student there, the Tar Heels won one of their six NCAA championships. For a short time, I was a bit of a fan of Tar Heel basketball. However, I have never been a huge sports fan. While I did have a UNC bumper sticker on my pickup when he was a student, that was three pickups ago and I don’t pay much attention to college sports.
A few years ago, I installed a receiver hitch under the front bumper of my pickup. The barn where we store our camper requires a tight turn to get the camper into the space and when the ground is saturated with water, the approach is a bit sketchy. Having a receiver in the front of the pickup improves my visibility and changes the turning radius when backing my trailer into the barn. (Or do you call it fronting, when it is hooked to the front of the pickup?)
In rummaging through my trailer hitch supplies I found a hitch receiver cover that has the UNC logo on it. I used to use that cover on the rear receiver of another pickup years ago. It seemed like a good idea to keep a cover on the front receiver since it otherwise would collect a lot of road debris in normal driving. As a result, I have the UNC logo on the front of my truck. At this house, the truck doesn’t fit into our garage so I leave it parked outside in the driveway. It is my habit to back it into the driveway so the UNC logo is facing the sidewalk.
The result is that I occasionally find myself in a conversation about UNC sports with neighbors and acquaintances. I seems like a ready topic of conversation because that logo is easily identifiable and it is right on the front of my truck. Interestingly, there is a much larger Ford oval in the middle of the grill of my truck and I can’t remember having any conversations with my neighbors about the brand of my truck, which is too bad because I arguably know more about Ford trucks than I do about UNC sports.
My next door neighbor, who is a public school gym teacher and coach, has already discovered that I am not a sports fan and has given up trying to discuss sports with me. We quickly get onto other topics. However, new conversations occasionally spring up with others. Not long ago a stranger asked me how the Tar Heels did the previous weekend. I had to admit that I had no idea and that I don’t follow Tar Heel football. He was surprised and said that I broke his heart when I didn’t even know who won the game. I suspect that his heart has since healed and he probably doesn’t even remember the conversation, but it made me think enough that I have been looking through some of the junk I have at the farm for another hitch cover that I used to own. The other hitch cover has a John Deere logo on it. My father was a John Deere dealer for 25 years and I have a collection of John Deere miniatures. I know a fair amount about the history of the company and even a bit about the current lineup of machines. Our son has a John Deere lawn and garden tractor and I frequently operate it. I’m pretty sure I know a heck of a lot more about John Deere than I do about UNC sports.
However, I’ve reached the point in my life where I am uninterested in collecting more junk, so I have no intention of purchasing another receiver cover. If I don’t find the John Deere one, I’ll stick with the UNC cover. And I don’t think it is likely that I will find that John Deere cover. I’m pretty sure that it didn’t make the move from South Dakota. If it had, it would have been in one of my tool boxes and I would have found it by now.
So I’m stuck with appearing to be uninformed each time someone strikes up a conversation about UNC sports. And I drive a pickup with an advertisement for UNC sports right on the front.
I suppose that I could simply take a bit of time to surf the web and follow UNC sports. The football team is looking strong this season. They have won all three of their games so far this season and beat Minnesota 31 - 13 last Saturday. They play Pittsburgh this coming weekend and the next week they take on Syracuse. The October 7 game holds a tiny bit of interest for me because when our son was considering graduate schools he was also accepted at Syracuse.
However, I am unlikely to become a sports fan at this late stage of my life. I think that instead I might try to come up with some lines to say in response to overtures about UNC sports. It might not encourage conversation, however, if I responded to an inquiry about sports by saying, “Oh, I don’t follow UNC sports, but they have an amazing library school. Did you know that it has one of the nation’s top medical library programs?”
The truth is that no one really cares about whether or not I am a sports fan. When I get to know others we discover lots of other common interests that provide topics for conversation. And the pickup is probably destined to make the move to the farm and become a full-time farm truck after a few more years as both it an I get older. When the time comes for us to downsize our camping equipment and sell the trailer, we’ll probably find that it doesn’t make sense to keep the big pickup.
However, for the next few weeks, I’ll try to remember that this year’s basketball opener for UNC is Friday, October 27 for an exhibition game. I hope no one expects me to remember who they are playing.
A few years ago, I installed a receiver hitch under the front bumper of my pickup. The barn where we store our camper requires a tight turn to get the camper into the space and when the ground is saturated with water, the approach is a bit sketchy. Having a receiver in the front of the pickup improves my visibility and changes the turning radius when backing my trailer into the barn. (Or do you call it fronting, when it is hooked to the front of the pickup?)
In rummaging through my trailer hitch supplies I found a hitch receiver cover that has the UNC logo on it. I used to use that cover on the rear receiver of another pickup years ago. It seemed like a good idea to keep a cover on the front receiver since it otherwise would collect a lot of road debris in normal driving. As a result, I have the UNC logo on the front of my truck. At this house, the truck doesn’t fit into our garage so I leave it parked outside in the driveway. It is my habit to back it into the driveway so the UNC logo is facing the sidewalk.
The result is that I occasionally find myself in a conversation about UNC sports with neighbors and acquaintances. I seems like a ready topic of conversation because that logo is easily identifiable and it is right on the front of my truck. Interestingly, there is a much larger Ford oval in the middle of the grill of my truck and I can’t remember having any conversations with my neighbors about the brand of my truck, which is too bad because I arguably know more about Ford trucks than I do about UNC sports.
My next door neighbor, who is a public school gym teacher and coach, has already discovered that I am not a sports fan and has given up trying to discuss sports with me. We quickly get onto other topics. However, new conversations occasionally spring up with others. Not long ago a stranger asked me how the Tar Heels did the previous weekend. I had to admit that I had no idea and that I don’t follow Tar Heel football. He was surprised and said that I broke his heart when I didn’t even know who won the game. I suspect that his heart has since healed and he probably doesn’t even remember the conversation, but it made me think enough that I have been looking through some of the junk I have at the farm for another hitch cover that I used to own. The other hitch cover has a John Deere logo on it. My father was a John Deere dealer for 25 years and I have a collection of John Deere miniatures. I know a fair amount about the history of the company and even a bit about the current lineup of machines. Our son has a John Deere lawn and garden tractor and I frequently operate it. I’m pretty sure I know a heck of a lot more about John Deere than I do about UNC sports.
However, I’ve reached the point in my life where I am uninterested in collecting more junk, so I have no intention of purchasing another receiver cover. If I don’t find the John Deere one, I’ll stick with the UNC cover. And I don’t think it is likely that I will find that John Deere cover. I’m pretty sure that it didn’t make the move from South Dakota. If it had, it would have been in one of my tool boxes and I would have found it by now.
So I’m stuck with appearing to be uninformed each time someone strikes up a conversation about UNC sports. And I drive a pickup with an advertisement for UNC sports right on the front.
I suppose that I could simply take a bit of time to surf the web and follow UNC sports. The football team is looking strong this season. They have won all three of their games so far this season and beat Minnesota 31 - 13 last Saturday. They play Pittsburgh this coming weekend and the next week they take on Syracuse. The October 7 game holds a tiny bit of interest for me because when our son was considering graduate schools he was also accepted at Syracuse.
However, I am unlikely to become a sports fan at this late stage of my life. I think that instead I might try to come up with some lines to say in response to overtures about UNC sports. It might not encourage conversation, however, if I responded to an inquiry about sports by saying, “Oh, I don’t follow UNC sports, but they have an amazing library school. Did you know that it has one of the nation’s top medical library programs?”
The truth is that no one really cares about whether or not I am a sports fan. When I get to know others we discover lots of other common interests that provide topics for conversation. And the pickup is probably destined to make the move to the farm and become a full-time farm truck after a few more years as both it an I get older. When the time comes for us to downsize our camping equipment and sell the trailer, we’ll probably find that it doesn’t make sense to keep the big pickup.
However, for the next few weeks, I’ll try to remember that this year’s basketball opener for UNC is Friday, October 27 for an exhibition game. I hope no one expects me to remember who they are playing.
