Sports are a huge part of my life. It effects just about everything I do. It effects what I watch, what I read, what web sites I visit. It effects who my friends are, what I talk about, what radio station I listen to. It effects how I feel, my moods, what I teach my children, just about everything. It affects my work; it gives me something to relate to with my clients from other parts of the country. And this has been the case since I was little. When I was little, it determined what I did with my allowance (as I spent more money than I care to remember on baseball cards that aren’t worth the paper they are printed on today). It effected how my father and I connected (it still does for that matter). It effected who I wanted to be when I grew up. It effected how I decorated my room. It effected what I did in and out of school, as if I wasn’t watching sports, I was certainly was playing some sport somewhere. Whether it was an organized game or a pickup game in the neighborhood, I always seemed to be doing something sports related. It affected me so much then and so much now for one reason, I fell in love with sports. I love the competion. I love watching sports. I love learning all I can about sports. I love the behind the scenes stuff in terms of what it takes to build a team and what it takes to be successful. I love reading all about the NFL and NBA draft, what potential trades are being discussed, who is playing well and who isn’t, what players are free agents, playing fantasy football. I love debating who is better the Sox or the Yanks. I love going to Fenway or the Garden.

Unfortunetly, sports seem to be changing. I am actually wondering what happened to the big part of my life that I love so much. I worry about sports. Today all you hear about are the off the field issues. I hate steroids, congressional hearings, Spygate, Barry Bonds, Pac Man Jones, Roger Clemens and the all of the negativity that surrounds sports. Just a few years ago, the first thing I did when I woke up was to turn on ESPN and find out what happened in last nights games, what trades were made, what injuries occurred. Who did what on the field. I would grab the Boston Herald and immediately flip to the back page, the sports page. Like most sports nuts my favorite and most watched show was SportsCenter. I couldn’t go a day with out watching SportsCenter at least twice. Nowadays, I can’t seem to be able to watch 10 minutes of it anymore. They don’t seem to show any game highlights anymore and that is what I am looking. I turned on SportsCenter last week and it took 15 minutes before they talked about anything that actually happened on the field. Sports today seem to more Law and Order than actual sports. Then when they do talk about actual sports, they commentators can’t seem to do it with out yelling. I don’t need anyone yelling at me. The innocence of sports that made me fall in love with it when I was younger seems to be disappearing.

That is why I hope will all my might that the thing I fell in love with so many years ago returns to way I remember it. I hope this not only my sake but for the sake of my children. I want sports for them to give them as much happiness as it did me and if things continue the way they are I don’t see that happening.