Non-Sporty Spice

My favorite quote from a Spice Girl who is not Victoria Beckham (who is, actually, hilarious) is from Melanie Chisholm aka Sporty Spice who said that being dubbed Sporty Spice was a burden and that sometimes she wished she was Fat, Lazy Spice instead. Poor Sporty, it is a lot of pressure to live up to that name. At least she is British, and, let's face it, when we think of England our first thought is not, "Athletes!" The United States is a sporty country and for the non-sporty among us, it can be difficult. In fact, the last time I wrote anything of any length about sports was in law school when I wrote a comment for the Bankruptcy Developments Journal entitled, "It's All Fun and Games Until Someone Declares Bankruptcy: A Debtor's Right to Season Ticket Holder Status." It focused on section 365 of the zzzzzzzzzz. Yes, I know. If you missed that issue of the BDJ, I will send you a copy because I have about 50 sitting in my attic.

While I exercise so that I won't get diabetes, I am not much of an athlete and I generally won't go out of my way to watch sports not involving my children. This is probably because I did not grow up in a normal sporty family. The mainstream American sports are just too mundane for my father. He probably knows all the rules to cricket, can fence like a musketeer, and knows his way around the buzkashi field (click - hysterical list of obscure sports), but I don't think he's ever played a pick-up game of basketball. Okay, he has been known to don a blue and red scarf and take in the Princeton-Penn football game with one of his Ivy League friends, but more for the plummy experience, not to actually watch the game. 

I love the picture on that program because: a. The Penn Quaker looks like Rudolph Valentino channelling the little Dutch boy, but inexplicably wearing a fedora and a knickers sailor suit, and b. This Quaker's the angriest looking pacifist I've ever seen.