Article:The reason behind playing sports

A little while ago, I signed up at this great site and also read an article explaining why football (soccer) is the greatest sport there is. It also commanded us to al start playing soccer. That text, plus the comments following it, got me wondering why people choose certain sports. The argument to start playing soccer then was a lifetime supply of beer for a player (which the player had to reject). Sounds fun and all, but that isn't the case for us mortals, so why exactly do we start to play certain sports? This is just my take on this question, but please state your own answers in the comment section.

In my opinion there are multiple reasons why people choose to practice certain sports. The obvious reason is because one actually likes the sport for any number of reasons. They like the speed it's played at, or the ammount of tactics behind it, or even the type of uniforms. But I think people choose it because they are lazy in choosing what they like. With lazy i mean that most people pick the sport other people pick. I can state numourous examples of people starting to play soccer because everybody does it (I'm from the Netherlands, you know). I think that's the case for many people. In a lot of countries there is a culture in which a certain sport is dominant. In Holland that's soccer, in Switzerland it's wintersports and in Canada (I believe) it's icehockey. More or less, you're demanded to pick that sport, even when you don't feel like moving your body, apart from breathing, at all. When you go to some park, you'll see some installations for little kids and a pair of goals. Not a baseball diamond, or a running track. Sure, those kind of things can be found, but only when you know where to look and most certainly not in parks for everybody to use.

It's a shame this kind of demanding sports culture exists. When I feel like running my lungs out, and doing nothing else, then I should be given the chance to become a marathon runner. Without people asking me why or raising their eyebrows 'The Rock-style'. In a country where all streets are dyed orange because of EURO 2008, I chose to play baseball. There came the questions and the eyebrows. Why did I chose to swing a bat? Because my little brother did it. And there you have it. I was lazy in my choosing. I'm sure that when he would be playing hockey, I would be too. Not because I like to be with him all the time, but because I would never try to choose anything else. The joy of playing ball started with just being able to move outside of moving my chest up and down to breathe. Only after a couple of years I enjoyed baseball as the game it is.

So that's what i mean with being 'lazy' and why I think people choose sports to do and watch. I just wrote my first article on the internet in English and I'm off watching the EURO 2008. Yes, soccer.