How to get caught up on sports?

College Life
1

<p>Ok, admittedly, I'm not that into watching sports games on TV. I don't even know the names of major players in different sports. All in all, I don't really care about sports.. but I do understand that lots of people are, and that it makes for easier conversation wherever you go when you can talk about what's going on in the sports world. </p>

<p>So for a person never having been into sports much, how do I get up to snuff before the fall semester? Should I watch games, read the papers, or what?</p>

2

<p>I'll also mention, I like to watch sports in person, since you get more into the crowd mindset of cheering your team on. Also I don't mind watching the finals or playoffs for a sport, its just that I've never gotten into the regular games leading up to it, so I don't know player names etc. Right now my favorite sport would probably be college football, since I feel it has somewhat more of an impact that say golf, baseball, or professional football, since I'm going to college.</p>

3

<p>...go to SI.com</a> - News and Scores from Sports Illustrated
watch sportscenter religiously</p>

<p>the worst part is that coming up is the worst time in the sports year. after the NBA is over (a couple of weeks), all there is is golf and baseball, and talk about the next football season.</p>

4

<p>here's a QUICK rundown of top players in different sports (I'm leaving TONS out, but this is an okay place to start):
NFL
Peyton Manning- QB for Ind Colts, won a Super Bowl and is known for studying up a lot before games
Tom Brady- QB for NE Patriots, won a lot of superbowls (...3?), and is known for winning
Eli Manning- QB NY Giants, known for being Peyton's younger brother and winning last years super bowl
Ladanlian Tomlinson- RB SD Chargers, along with Adrian Peterson, is thought of as best rb in the nfl. is being talked about, if he keeps it up, as being one of the best ever
Adrian Peterson- RB MIN Vikings, rookie of the year, and first rookie to make it to the Pro Bowl since '99 (Edgerrin James). name is shortened to AP (like the tests, lol)</p>

<p>MLB
Derek Jeter- SS NY Yankees (boooooo!). he's the hero of the yankees. thought of as the opposite of Alex Rodriguez
Alex Rodriguez (A-Rod)- 3B NY Yankees. MVP last year (...i think... if not, than recently). even though he's a good player, he's thought of as not being "clutch" and blowing it in the big situations.
For pitchers, watch ESPN.... there are tons.... and I hate that i'm only doing NY players, but that's what you'll get with most fans
right now, the best pitcher in baseball is Brandon Webb. He's the first pitcher to win his first 8 games in some number of years. He pitches for the Arizona Diamondbacks.</p>

<p>NBA
Kevin Garnett, Paul Pierce, and Ray Allen: this is still a story because the Celtics are in the playoffs (2-0 over the Cav's) after being terrible last year. They traded for both Ray Allen and Kevin Garnett, two super stars, to add to Paul Pierce whom they've had for a long time. KG was in the MVP talk.
Lebron James (King James). he was the biggest prodigy high school player to come straight from high school since Kobe Bryant and KG. People talked about him being the next Michael Jordan, and he's living up to the hype suprisingly well. the past couple of years he's been in the MVP talk, and last year he got the cav's to the NBA finals (though they got swept by the SA Spurs).
Kobe Bryant. won the MVP this year. captain of the USA olympic team. amazing player.
Chris Paul. a young player (2nd or 3rd year) that was getting a LOT of talk about MVP (he came in second). he has turned his team from being pretty terrible looking good in the playoffs in a single year almost single handedly. </p>

<p>Golf
Tiger Woods vs. the field. don't talk about gofl. ignorance shows easily.</p>

<p>that's all for now. again, watch sportscenter. it can teach a lot, and much faster, than I can put on this "cheat sheet" of sorts.</p>

5

<p>watching sportscenter regularly and reading espn.com will allow you to at least carry a conversation in the fall. If you're really fall focused, obviously only really go for baseball or football. I would go with football since baseball will end in october whereas football doesnt end until february.</p>

6

<p>Watch SportsCenter. A short 30 minute session will get you caught up on all the big stories so you can say, "Hey, how about when Kobe dropped ___ points on ____ team?"</p>

7

<p>Watching Sportscenter will make you an idiot sports wise.</p>

<p>Topics to look for, NBA.</p>

<p>Celtics- KG, Pierce, and Allen put together. Going from 2nd worst record in the NBA to the best record with 66 wins. Defensive turnaround under assistant coach Tom Thibodeau.</p>

<p>Suns- Traded for Shaq, closed their championship window. Mike D'Antoni resigned, have a coaching void.</p>

<p>Mavericks- Traded Devin Harris for Jason Kidd while towards the top of the West. Ruined the team; fired Avery Johnson, the coach with the best regular season win % as a scapegoat move. Hired Rick Carlisle to turn it around.</p>

<p>Rockets- 22 game winstreak. </p>

<p>Lakers- Raped the Grizzlies in a trade for Gasol. Kobe demanded trades to Chicago, but nothing got done...happy with the Lakers again, as they are atop the West.</p>

<p>Hornets- Raped the Bulls in a trade for Tyson Chandler. Built team through that rip off, the drafting of Chris Paul (point guard extraordinaire, runner up for NBA MVP this year), and the signing of Peja Stojakovic. Hired Byron Scott as their coach, he's made the finals every year he's been in the playoffs. Great young team.</p>

<p>Blazers- Oden out this year, overachieved. Oden was the #1 pick in the 2007 draft, and will rejoin the team next year.</p>

<p>Knicks- Laughingstock of the NBA. Relieved Isiah Thomas of his GM duties, and handed those over to Donnie Walsh. Walsh then chose to fire Isiah Thomas. Hired Mike D'Antoni, coach of the run and gun Phoenix Suns to be the coach. Expect massive overhauls, because the current Knicks team is a horrible fit for D'Antoni.</p>

<p>Bulls- Hot young team, expected to win Eastern Conference last year, but had a massive meltdown after the Kobe trade talks, and Deng/Gordon failing to sign extensions. Scott Skiles fired early on in the season. Jim Boylan became coach. Bad season led to outbursts by Kirk Hinrich, Ben Gordon, Joakim Noah, Tyrus Thomas, Andres Nocioni, Chris Duhon, and Aaron Gray against Jim Boylan. Jim Boylan was an assclown of a coach and got fired at the end of the year. Expected to resign Deng and Gordon, and trade Larry Hughes in the offseason. Still have a coaching void. Avery Johnson and Tom Thibodeau are the favorites, with longshots of JVG, Dwane Casey, Michael Curry, and Michael Cooper. Believed they can turn it around quick.</p>

<p>But why would you care to fake this? If you don't care about sports, then you don't care about sports.</p>

8

<p>Wow, those are ridiculously old stories... </p>

<p>Talk about something more recent, like the Lakers as of now are undefeated in the playoffs, Kobe becoming MVP, and how they are bound to become the CHAMPS this year. You'll get a huge debate going; Kobe haters are everywhere.</p>

<p>And the Knicks have always been garbage.</p>

<p>Sports is a good thing though for socializing, whether you like them or not. People in business are basically required to play golf, whether you like the game or not.</p>

9

<p>"Talk about something more recent, like the Lakers as of now are undefeated in the playoffs"</p>

<p>Lakers are not undefeated in the playoffs. they lost like a day ago</p>

10

<p>Yeah...my stories are old...ugh...more like part of the general story of the NBA...and Carlisle/D'Antoni just signed this weekend.</p>

<p>And Lakers lost to the Jazz behind a 20/20 game by Boozer. They are not bound to win the championship. They'll probably lose to the Hornets in the WCF.</p>

11

<p>Lakers will win the West. </p>

<p>I don't know who to choose for the most pathetic road team in the playoffs... I'll take the Jazz. Celtics will get it right eventually.</p>

<p>Anyways, I think what no one's posted about this topic is the fact that you need to have a team. Start with anyone. Become a kobe lover. A lebron lover "Please don't". Anyone. Then you can start following the debates that people have about that person/team. Then you can start getting in drunken bar fights with random NYK fans who are sad because their team blows harder than Chicago on a windy day. </p>

<p>Then you're on the road to being a sports fan.</p>

12

<p>hey knicks have not always been garbage! ive been a knicks fan my whole life and they were good "back in the day" like 10 years ago. around 98 didnt they go into the fianls two years straight against the spurs? patrick ewing and allen houston were my two favorite players. </p>

<p>theyll have their day again. even though i hate to say it, look at the celtics. hahah im totally one of those people who hates it when people rip on the knicks. and hey, werent people hating on the giants at the beginning of the season and look what happened!</p>

<p>ive been into sports my whole life probably due to having 2 older brothers and a mom whos into sports. and im also one of the few people i know into international soccer cause of my dad. just turn on espn and watch it no matter whats on. make your homepage yahoo sports or something and just read through the headlines. and college football is a REALLY fun thing to follow. never really got into it until this year (my freshman year) but its awesome.</p>

13

<p>I second the "watch sportscenter" thing. Also, go to espn.com and look at team records for each sport from the previous season to get a good idea who is good and who isn't.</p>

14

<p>I think the OP would be better off picking ONE sport to really start paying attention to and then using sportscenter to kind of get an idea of the rest. What this sport might be will depend on your interest and where you go to school (ie, if you went to Duke, you'd be better off paying attention to college basketball rather than football). If you're in a large city at a school that isnt' D1, then it's better to follow pro sports than college. </p>

<p>Also, if you're a newbie, don't try to start arguments. That's not going to be good.</p>

<p>College sports have been largely ignored in the discussion so far but a brief rundown - </p>

<p>College Baseball - regular seasons are starting to wind down, and conference tournaments will be starting soon. Then will come the NCAA regional tournament and then the College World Series in Omaha Nebraska in mid-June. Not many people pay attention to college baseball, but I think it's a lot more fun than MLB...</p>

<p>College Football - Spring practices just concluded, and it's still about 2 months before the pre-season magazines start coming out. Top stories right now are Rich Rodriguez leaving West Virginia for Michigan and the turmoil surrounding that, Nick Saban's 2nd season at Alabama, the Bowl Championship Series vs a 4 or 8 team Playoff to decide the national champion, and Joe Paterno at Penn State not having a contract extension. I believe that Georgia will be #1 in most of the pre-season polls. </p>

<p>There are a ton of great CFB blogs out there - my favorites include
Every</a> Day Should Be Saturday<a href="absolutely%20hilarious">/url</a>
[url=<a href="http://thewizardofodds.blogspot.com/%5DThe">http://thewizardofodds.blogspot.com/]The</a> Wizard of Odds
and
Sunday</a> Morning Quarterback - Second guessing the decisions of college kids since 2005.</p>

<p>All three of those are pretty general in their approach, but you should also look and see if there are any blogs out there dedicated to athletics at your school.</p>

15

<p>The Lakers lost!?!</p>

<p>You guys just brought a tear to my eye. I'm glad I didn't have to see that disgrace...</p>

<p>Oh well, it's just a little bump in the road. They're still taking it all this year.</p>

<p>Lakers lead 2-1, game on in about 10 minutes!</p>

16

<p>I'll probably keep up well with college football with a backdrop of regular football. I went to Rutgers previously and they got significantly better over the past 3 years. Now I'm going to UF, so I've gotta check out the Gators some. As for picking a team for the NFL, I was a Steelers fan a decade ago but then just kinda lost interest(this was because my friends back then weren't into sports, so I fell into a black hole so to speak), but I'll go back to them. I'm a Philly local, so it'd make sense to go with the Eagles, but I'm just tired of Philly teams being complete letdowns(maybe the Flyers will change things up, we'll see how they do against the Penguins). Baseball, I've sorta been a Yankees fan, most MLB games I've seen in person have been at Yankee's stadium, and its an easy team to love.</p>

<p>As for the poster who said that if I'm not interested, I shouldn't bother, I think that if I were to know what things were up, have a team to cheer for and watch, I'd enjoy it, especially if I watch it at a bar and like someone said, get into a barfight over a game ;)</p>

17

<p>DUDE, JUST TURN ON THE LAKERS GAME...</p>

<p>Hard not to be a sports fan now.</p>

<p>Overtime on fisher's block!</p>

18

<p>Great game, but I'm incredibly ****ed with Kobe. </p>

<p>He shouldn't have been taking all those 3's since he was injured. But it was a tough choice with Derek fouled out. </p>

<p>Jazz only won because Kobe was injured.</p>

19

<p>That was a good game. Williams is a beast. </p>

<p>This has been an exciting playoffs so far.</p>

20

<p>Whenever a ball is hit, put into a hoop, or carried to a particular point of significance, my mind instantly races to consider all of the action's possible ramifications: "How will this affect future hittings, throwings, and carryings of other, different balls?" I wonder to myself. What a joy it is to closely follow a random group of men thrown together in one geographic location working together to win contests of athletic ability. Each and every victory of a team full of people I'll never meet over another team full of people I'll never meet is a complex web of nuance and metaphor to contemplate at great length.</p>

<p>Professional</a> Sports Is Very Interesting | The Onion - America's Finest News Source</p>