If you’re reading this column, chances are you’re a sports fan.  As for me, well it’s not that I don’t love sports anymore, it’s just not as rich as it used to be.  It doesn’t ooze out of my pores.  It doesn’t flow through my veins.  I remember the days when I’d feen for her the way Gator did that white powder in “Jungle Fever”.  She’d consume my thoughts like that 12^th grade cheerleader does for the dorky, pocket-protector-wearing freshman.

But then things changed.  It’s not that we grew too comfortable with one another, thus beginning to take her for granted.  It’s just that I began noticing her flaws and that seemed to overshadow her beauty.  The honeymoon was over.  You know how the first two months of a relationship with the love of your life is as carefree, seemless, and saturated with intrigue as is humanly possible, but then when the butterflies migrate from your belly, you begin to notice the imperfections that have always existed.  All of a sudden that mole over her left eyebrow isn’t quite as endearing as it was the first time you laid eyes on her.

As a kid, all I saw was the beauty that basketball, baseball, football, boxing, track, tennis, etc. offered and I loved them.  It wasn’t until later that I felt the infidelity coming from her side of our relationship.  I was truly head over heels in love, sprung, whipped, whatever you wanna call it, and there was no way I could possibly fathom those feelings weren’t being reciprocated.  But then I felt that uneasy quiver in my gut that sensed she wasn’t all that she was cracked up to be.  I had thoughts like my man on “Office Space” that my girl was cheating on me and I was just now catching wind of it.  But, still, I kept persisting blindly.  I didn’t want a life without her.  But then came the lockouts and strikes.  Then came ears being bitten off.  Then came Balco.  Then came Kobe.  Then came Spree’s “my family’s gotta eat” comment.  Then came Clemens traveling only on days he pitched.  Then came Tank, Pac Man, and the Bengals.  Then came unaffordable, unreasonable ticket prices.  Did I mention, then came Kobe?  Then came Courtney Alexander telling reporters that his recently abused girlfriend was “in my kitchen fixing me breakfast”.

The bottom line is the other shoe dropped.  The crap hit the fan.  Reality was exposed to a once-present naïveté and for a while I all but divorced watching sports.  I still played them, but I couldn’t support the money-grubbing owners, the money-spending player, and money-losing fans.  We were being financially raped and I wasn’t gonna aid and abet the culprits any more.  Other than Duke basketball, I was done with it.

But then I started yearning for her again.  I waited for her to call me again.  I missed her on weekends and on the evenings after work.  I’d hear the guys at work talking about her and the show she put on the night before, but I refused to give her anymore of my heart.  But then I broke.  Though I didn’t agree with all she stood for nor did I appreciate her many faults and idiosyncrasies I knew life just wasn’t the same without her.  I missed her.  I needed her. 

So this website and my contributions to it are officially my love letter to her.  This is me telling her that I know she could never love me the way I want her to or the way I once envisioned that she did, but that life without her just isn’t as fulfilling or as exciting.  This is me saying to her that “being friends” is better than having nothing.  I forgive you.