Your Sport
“For me personally, although I mostly played basketball for many years, the sport of volleyball has been really special to me. It was one of the first sports I got to watch in person, and the first sport I played on a team for.”
Coming into the month of February, a month that people see about love and attachment. I wanted to find a way to bring sports into the conversation. Thus, leading me to my idea for this month’s issue. I wanted to bring a few people to talk about the sport that they have a connection with, a sport they have felt attached to. Whether that being because they enjoy playing the sport, watching the sport, or their own personal reasons and more.
In the past, I have mostly interviewed coaches for these articles. However, I had to switch up the pace and interview some new faces. Thus, I decided to interview people I have never interviewed before, while also bringing in my own thoughts. I asked them all the same question and they each gave me a unique response to what their favorite sport is.
When going through each interview, Ms. Medina was the first person to mention the sport of basketball. She told me, “I love basketball. I used to play in high school and middle school. What I love most about it was how my dad, we had a backyard at the time and he bought a hoop for me. We would practice and having that connection to my father, watching the game, playing the game. It’s a beautiful thing. I used to work at a treatment center with kids, and something about playing basketball with them calmed them down a lot more”.
Emmanuel brought up some similarities when bringing up his sport. His words, “Soccer, the world’s greatest sport. It was the sport that I played since I was a child, so I’ve grown fond of it. My parents, specifically my dad introduced me to the sport. He showed me the Mexican league, showing me his favorite team, America. Growing up watching sports with him, he took me out to the park to play soccer and taught me the basics. Growing fond of the clubs, the league. All of this had made me grow so fond of the sport. The players, the culture, the history of the sport.”
While Ms. Pham also brought up soccer but for her own reasons, saying “For watching, my favorite sport is soccer. I grew up in Europe and it was kind of the default sport. In soccer there is always something happening. You need a lot of skill, stamina, and collaboration. The game is continuous, it doesn’t stop and start unlike American football.” However, it didn’t stop there. Although Ms. Pham enjoys watching Soccer, she gave me a different opinion when it came to the sport she enjoys playing. “For playing, I like playing Frisbee. The culture around it is mostly about having fun and it’s very respectful. It’s noncontact, very inclusive since you can be tall or short to play it.”
Mr. Kelly came to me with almost a timeline of his favorite sports. Telling me how he grew up with baseball and playing baseball, to enjoying professional biking. He told me, “It's changed over time, my favorite sport growing up was baseball. I loved baseball, I played baseball almost through highschool and I grew up going to baseball games almost every weekend with my dad. Highlight of my childhood. When I stopped playing, I stopped following, I was big yankees fans. Now, my favorite sports are endurance sports, lesser known sports, like track. My favorite sport right now is professional biking. That’s my favorite sport by far. I still love baseball games, I love the atmosphere, I watch a few baseball games every summer, and I prefer the Mets because of Citi Field.”
For me personally, although I mostly played basketball for many years, the sport of volleyball has been really special to me. It was one of the first sports I got to watch in person, and the first sport I played on a team for. Additionally, it helped me get closer to some of my family members since they were and are volleyball players themselves. Volleyball is a sport where even if you’re losing, you still have fun because it takes a special amount of skill and teamwork to be good. Which in my eyes, is something to appreciate. While in basketball, one player could possibly make a team good, in volleyball, it requires more than just good players. You need players with good communication and trust to make a team good.