The Definition of a Sports Widow
July 9, 2007 10:04 PM | 0 Comments
Each day, our nation’s television and cable networks, radio stations, newspapers, magazines and Internet devote an astounding amount of time, space and money to reporting about sports to the sports-savvy.
Drive through any major metropolitan area, and sports facilities, shrines to our national obsession, dominate the skyline; sports bars teem with rowdy, beer-swilling fans; politicians regularly debate how much we should invest in sports facilities and franchises; and sports/athletic gear is a wardrobe staple.
In the U.S. alone, there are well over 62 million sports fans and at least 19 million sports addicts, and they are 92% male, ages 18-54. (See more details in my entry entitled The Definition of a Sports Fan.)
If you think about it, conservatively, behind these sports fans at least half -- or 40 million – have a disenfranchised wife, girlfriend, mother, partner or reluctant companion, who is overshadowed or excluded from “The Club.”
These are the Sports Widows.
So, with a constituency this large, I ask you… Where’s the rebuttal? Where’s the foil? Who’s commiserating with, interpreting for, negotiating for and most importantly cheering for the OTHER team?
No one…
Until now.
Enter sportswidow.com, the web site designed for my people, the Sports Widow Nation.
Who Are We Sports Widows and What Are Our Credentials?
In my unofficial survey, Sports Widows span age, nationality, temperament and gender, but we are mostly female. Despite Title IX, Sports Widows are as self-replenishing as their foils, the sports fans, are. We may not generally identify with the term Sports Widow, but instead may consider ourselves a specialist: Football Widow, Basketball Widow, Baseball Widow, Soccer Widow, Golf Widow, Tennis Widow, Hockey Widow, Racing (NASCAR) Widow, Bowling Widow, Hunting Widow, Fishing Widow, Cycling Widow, Poker Widow… Our definition of Sports Widowhood may even get more specific, depending on how the sports fan in our lives manifests his/her passion. Is the fan an athlete or a spectator? Does the fan follow or participate in professional, college, or youth leagues? In other words, there are as many Sports Widow varieties as there are Bubba Gump shrimp recipes***.
Regardless of our specific affiliation, the roots of our Sports Widowhood can be traced to any or a combination of the following sources:
• A natural, often humiliating, lack of coordination;
• Ignorance about and a lack of exposure to sports in general;
• Challenging, daily life negotiations with an adult sports fan and/or children who participate in or follow sports; or
• Extensive knowledge about and possibly even a participant in some sports, but alienated by others.
Sports Widow Psychology 101
Sports Widows have a variety of psychological attributes. Here are some that describe the continuum of typical Sports Widows and their associated mentalities. While my emphasis is on women, there are plenty of men who are Sports Widows, too.
The Avenging Sports Widow HATES sports and considers it an assault on her life. She would like nothing more than to crush the back of sports domination with the heel of her fashionable boot. She may have been raised by a sports fanatic, married to one or in a relationship with one, but she has vowed never again.
The Sabotaging Sports Widow has a conflicted reaction to her fan’s passion for “the game.” Rationally, she thinks it’s great he has something he cares about. Yet, emotionally, she resents how it siphons away his time and focus. Her problem is compounded by the fact that she doesn’t see the counterpart in her life; she doesn’t feel equally indulged. Or, alternatively, she just doesn’t “get” why sports are interesting or important. Secretly, she is jubilant when her fan’s teams don’t make the play-offs. She is also a clever strategist, deftly placing scheduling roadblocks that directly compete with her fan’s plans as a participant or spectator.
The Enabling Sports Widow is the quintessential “water girl,” blithely preparing the snacks and stocking the soda and beer for sporting events. If there are children involved, she entertains them, permitting her fan to indulge in his passions. She may also dutifully attend games, whether professional or for her children, but finds solace in distractions: conversing with other Sports Widows, sampling food and drink, smiling at cute babies, ogling cute players, watching half-time entertainment, reading a good book, or jotting down grocery lists. If you ask her to provide a game recap or to identify which team won, she will have no idea.
The Compromising Sports Widow has devised an intricate, yet satisfying, debit/credit system, frequently with emphasis on the credit card. She makes calculated trade-offs with her fan that may include barter items such as shopping, time alone, socializing with girlfriends or pampering.
The Keeping-Up-With-The-Fan Sports Widow vainly tries to participate in her fan’s sports, but her abilities, mind and heart aren’t truly engaged. After a while, she runs out of steam (or her knees start to give out from advancing age).
The Role Reversal Sports Widow reflects that rare instance in which the fan is female and the Sports Widow is male. In this case, the Sports Widower may be Avenging, Enabling, Compromising or a Keeping-Up-With-The-Fan variety.
My hypothesis is that Sports Widows are effectively members of a club, which has yet to find a sense of community and shared empowerment. Whether you're on an intellectual path from Sports Ignorant to Sports Savvy or a physcial path from un-athletic to athletic, or an emotional path from anger/revenge to amusement/accommodation or you're stuck on the side of the path somewhere, I hope you'll join me. I want to hear your stories so that we can laugh, learn and get inspiration from each other.
After all, life is a contact sport. Seize the remote. Reclaim the recliner. Get in the game. I'm here for you.
***Note: there are 75 shrimp recipes in The Bubba Gump Shrimp Co. Cookbook: Recipes & Reflections from Forrest Gump
From the all of the Archives
A Sports Widow Sideline Report on Car Racing
May 18, 2007 11:39 AM | 0 Comments
I spent nearly every summer of my childhood in a small town called Brookston, Indiana, which was 20 miles from West Lafayette, home of Purdue University, and 90 miles Northwest of Indianapolis, home of the famous Indianapolis Motor Speedway. My earliest impressions of car racing came from my proper, southern grandmother, who after marrying my Hoosier grandfather, agreed to leave her native Tennessee to live in a plains town in Indiana. Her sweet-as-honeysuckle drawl never left her nor did her strong religious convictions. Grandma Minnie believed that racing was evil and naturally connected with drinking, betting, carousing and general licentiousness.
This prejudice made it a bit awkward, when my father wound up marrying (his second marriage) a woman who was either employed or volunteered for the Dade County Race Track in Dade County, Wisconsin. It was never quite clear what her role was. Picture Karen Black wearing a hypnotizing black & white dress that was patterned after racing flags. Sue's role was simple: Hypnotize the crowd, look svelt and enchanting, hand out trophies and dole out kisses to the winners. It was clearly a hardship post.
Yet, in sharp contrast to my Grandma Minnie's opinions and my experiences with Sue, who was less gracious with those of us who were not race car drivers, I was swooned by movies that romanticized racing and the automobile in general. As I've mentioned, I love movies, and have belonged to a Movie Club for 15 years now. I have a special fondness for old, classic movies. This may not be racing, but who can forget Grace Kelly sitting beside Cary Grant in a roadster in To Catch a Thief
While working as a PR intern at the Wisconsin State Fair one summer, I was posted at one of three Information Booths, the one right next to the race track. During the races, my booth buddies and I could barely hear ourselves speak, but fortunately we could read lips and grew accustomed to the most popular question and easiest one to answer. Nine times out of 10, these hearty, farm-fed Wisconsinites would inquire: "Where are the cream puffs?" to which we'd reply "Down this road, past the bubbler (drinking fountain in Midwestern speak) and right at the pig barn."
When I was 20 years old, my Uncle Lee, then a minister in Nashville, TN, took me to a church conference in Talladega, Alabama. An equal opportunity sports enthusiast, he used to show me sports sites on every trip. This time, we stopped by the Talladega Super Speedway and the groundskeeper gave us a tour, which included driving us around the embankment.
So, what interests me about car racing is how NASCAR has become such a popular sport among women and families. How did this evolve? Check out a copy of The Female Fan Guide to Motorsports (Female Fan Guide Series)
Horse Racing: The Sports Widow Revels in her Great Equestrian Moments
May 7, 2007 10:53 AM | 0 Comments
The victory of Street Sense in the 133rd Kentucky Derby, with Queen Elizabeth II as an esteemed spectator, reminds me of my personal history in the equestrian realm and prompts me to establish my baseline credentials (or perhaps, more descriptively, my lack of credentials) in this area of sports. Put succinctly, when it comes to horses, I do not have any street sense.
Clubhouse Notes: How to Make or Get an Arnold Palmer
April 27, 2007 10:33 AM | 0 Comments
Everyone who ever dines out with me knows that ever since the infamous job interview several years ago, my non-adult beverage of choice is hands-down an Arnold Palmer. I have a dream/delusion that one day Arnold Palmer and I will sit down in a sun-drenched clubhouse and sip Arnold Palmers together. We will avoid the subject of golf, since I know so little about it and instead discuss politics or ailments or religion - uncontentious issues. But, back to the point: Recipes.
What Does Arnold Palmer Mean to the Sports Widow?
April 26, 2007 10:17 AM | 0 Comments
I have since learned from a quick check on www.pga.com that by the end of 1993, Arnold Palmer amassed 92 championships in professional competitions of national or international stature. He won seven majors between 1958 and 1964, including one U.S. Open, four Masters and two British Opens. His back-to-back triumphs in the 1961 and ’62 British Opens, brought this competition back into vogue for Americans. The only victory that eluded Palmer was the PGA Championship. In 1980, nearly two decades after his last major victory, he won the PGA Senior Championship, the first Senior Tour event he ever entered.
Iced Tee: My First Encounter with Arnold Palmer
April 25, 2007 1:44 PM | 0 Comments
While in Wapato Point in Lake Chelan, Washington, during Spring Break, I was reminded of one of many times in my life when it was clear that there is NO escape from sports, no safe haven for the Sports Widow. It was one of my more memorable job interviews several years ago, which began on a precarious footing.
I was being interviewed for a job over lunch at a seafood restaurant on Lake Union in Seattle. The job was way out of my league: Corporate, relatively high salary, generally reputable. I was convinced they would never hire a lunatic like me, but then, no guts, no glory. Furthermore, my prospective boss and interviewer is everything that I am not as a professional. She speaks in bullet points. I speak in tongues. She has unnaturally blond hair, but it is clearly a salon versus a drugstore creation. Her makeup is carefully applied (with no visible lines indicating where the foundation ends and her real face begins), and she is wearing an outfit that reminds me of one of the members of Sergeant Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band. Uniforms like this with epaulettes say, “I’m in charge.”
The Bike Lesson
January 27, 2007 11:03 PM | 0 Comments
Growing up in Milwaukee, Wisconsin in the 1960s, I was oblivious to sports. This is incomprehensible to most men I know, who can’t believe I wasn’t avidly tracking the tragic exit of the Milwaukee Braves or the promising debut of the Milwaukee Bucks or the incredible feats of the Green Bay Packers. In fact, the Pack is the source of a recurring nightmare I have had throughout my life.
