I’m usually a really good sport about sports. I even love lots of them. Hey, you’re looking at All-Around Athlete of Camp Anawana, summer of ’65. Not to mention one of only two girls on East 52nd Street’s official punch ball team. Also as you may already know, I’m a huge pickleball fanatic. I play every chance I get, take skills and drills clinics and watch videos constantly in order to improve my game. But after the recent weeks’ TV fare, I’m about ready to tear my hair out of my head.
There was no getting away from it. Mostly, of course, it was pre-Super Bowl coverage and then the game itself and then post-Super Bowl coverage, but also there are always NBA games, college basketball leading up to March Madness, NHL, PGA Tour golf, boxing, UFC mixed martial arts and even PBA bowling.
Truthfully, it wasn’t merely the abundance of TV sports that got to me. I was really looking forward to seeing much of it. Instead, it was the incessant coverage and hype that crept into my ears, down my throat and took hold inside my belly so that by the time I crawled into bed each night, I felt the need for an exorcism. Or at least a rerun of “The Gilmore Girls.”
And certainly we were deluged by comparisons between young Jared Goff and not-so-young Tom Brady, especially on all the sports talk shows, or should I say the yelling shows, where it seems that every sportscaster thinks he needs to shout at the top of his lungs in order to be heard because hey, maybe you don’t have a volume button on your remote. And the unrelenting hour upon hour of analysis that took place especially after each playoff game leading up to the Super Bowl. Not to mention the controversy after the questionable referee call in the Saints/Rams game leaving open interpretation as to whether or not the Rams even deserved to be in the Super Bowl. And then, of course, the post-analysis for days afterward just about the game itself.
And then even when we wanted to watch programs like “The Today Show” or “CBS This Morning” we were inundated by food and drink recipes that would go best with the big game, not to mention outfits we should be wearing to Super Bowl parties. I have one word to say about outfits that go with all that fat-laden, carb-heavy snack food eating and imbibing: elastic.
Not only did the game itself inspire, let’s just call it heated discussion, but the half-time show sparked a bit of debate as to whether or not Adam Levine and Maroon 5 were being traitors to those NFL players who during the season took a knee during the national anthem to protest police brutality. Then the interminable onslaught of interviews before and after the big game. Not to mention post analysis that went on for days and days not only about the game itself but critiques of the half-time performances and even the quality of the commercials. I must say that, in my opinion, Gladys Knight knocked it out of the park with her rendition of the national anthem. After that, I thought the whole rest of the evening was not much more than one big snooze fest. Had it not been for the fabulous Super Bowl party hosted by our friends Mike and Daniella, I would have been asleep by the third quarter, which would have meant I’d have missed out on the final few exciting minutes. Do you think I might have been able to catch up on SportsCenter?
All I can say is that I’m glad these weeks have finally come to an end because I need to go into sports detox to reconnect with my brains. If anyone looks for me next weekend, I’ll be in therapy binge-watching “Grace and Frankie,” “The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel” and “The Real Housewives of New Jersey” and a year’s worth of “Chopped” episodes on the Food Network over and over again.
Ellyn Laub is a Coconut Creek resident.
