It's been a quiet week in the world of sports, and in the Hanover bubble.
The Wimbledon final is in the books as one of the greatest matches of all time, Major League Baseball is holding its breath before the All-Star Game and trade deadline, and nothing interesting is happening in the golf world.
On the home front, the initial athletic enthusiasm on campus has waned. There are fewer Frisbees flying on the green, and blitzing out to find a pickup game of basketball has yielded fewer and fewer responses.
We're still just over two months away from the kickoff of the 2008 football season, and Conner Kempe '12's highly-anticipated appearance on campus will come even sooner, but until then the Dartmouth super-fan must patiently wait for something interesting to happen.
To help combat the possibility of tear-inducing boredom, here are some ideas to keep you occupied until the Cubs fall apart, the Patriots can't get over a loss and Dartmouth football barely exceeds expectations again.
- Memorize the roster of two or three Dartmouth sports teams and find a fun fact about all of the players. I conducted an informal survey in Thayer yesterday and was disturbed to find out that a great majority of the sophomore class cannot name a single person on the Dartmouth football team. I was met with responses that included, "I have no idea," "Um...Andrew...umm...I don't know," "Who are you?" and "Dude, I can name like five!"
Knowing a bunch of people on every sports team is a useful talent to impress people at sporting events. It's like studying section C of the Wall Street Journal before your recruiting interviews. You can prove that you care, even if you don't. I'll give you a free one: Towny Swiggett '10 is on the lacrosse team. He once sailed to Bermuda.
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Spend several hours looking for interesting statistics on baseball-reference.com. There's no real use for this, and odds are you're not going to impress anyone in a basement by knowing that Willie Mays was on-deck when Bobby Thompson hit the shot heard "round the world," but it's definitely better than studying for orgo.
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Watch NASCAR. For some reason, NASCAR is one of the most popular sports in the country. The thing about a bandwagon is that it's never too late to jump on. The next race is the Lifelock.com 400 at Chicagoland Speedway this Saturday (TNT, 6:30 p.m.).
While to the casual observer NASCAR looks a lot like watching traffic, I'm told there is a lot more going on than just cars going in a circle. In fact, from what I can tell NASCAR is more like watching a high school cafeteria. Everyone is always getting in fights, changing teams and refusing to eat at each others' tables. So spend a little time on the Wikipedia page, watch a couple races, then maybe you can explain to me why people like it.
- Learn a new sport. This one sounds a little intense, and requires slightly more effort, since the last three all involved sitting on your computer or watching TV, but I assure you it's not as difficult as it sounds. As long as rhythmic gymnastics is still in the Olympics, apparently all you really have to do is order a Ribbon Dancer and practice a few hours every week.
If ballet-style activities aren't your cup of tea, sign up for a PE class. Actually, it might be a little late to sign up, but just start showing up at PEs and pretend you are someone who isn't coming that day. I just got back from PE Sailing, which, based on my performance, I'm pretty sure should be called PE Swimming. You could also just start showing up at the Dartmouth sports camps that took over Home Plate and insist that you're 16.
- Plan an intramural sport. Again, one you need to get off the couch to do, but I swear it will be worth it.
Your choices are pretty much limited to soccer and softball. Given the option, I'd take softball every time. IM soccer, as I found out this week, is just a bit too instense for the casual player. And by casual I mean that I haven't played since first grade.
IM softball, on the other hand, seems to require virtually no athletic ability. It helps, but its definitely not a pre-requisite. I mean, they're throwing the ball underhand...how hard could it be?
So there you have it, five ways to combat sports-boredom until the All-Star Break. Come back next week for a column on how to combat sports-overload.
