Booking through Thursday: Olympic Gold

First:

• Do you or have you ever read books about the Olympics? About sports in general?
• Fictional ones? Or non-fiction? Or both?

And, Second:

• Do you consider yourself a sports fan?
• Because, of course, if you’re a rabid fan and read about sports constantly, there’s a logic there; if you hate sports and never read anything sports-related, that, too … but you don’t have to love sports to enjoy a good sports story.
• (Or a good sports movie, for that matter. Feel free to expand this into a discussion about “Friday Night Lights” or “The Natural” or whatever…)

I have read exactly one book about the Olympics and I think sports in general – a biography of Dominique Moceanu when I was young, probably a pre-teen.  I really liked gymnastics back then.  My favorite is probably ice skating, but of course these are the summer Olympics on right now.  I haven’t watched any of this year’s Olympics, not even the opening ceremonies. My dad is away this week and my mom and I have pretty much no interest, especially not when the events aren’t live and we can hear the results on the radio before they air the event on TV.  Fiance’s not watching them either, so next time the Olympics are on I’m sure things will stay the same.

So, you can probably guess that I’m not a sports fan.  That is definitely true.  There were, however, four years during which I was a football fan.  I was in marching band in high school and it’s extremely difficult to be in marching band and not care about how your football team does.  You are, after all, another type of cheerleader when you’re at the game, although we always had our show and did competitions.  Our football team didn’t do very well my first two years, but by junior year our quarterback had become very, very good, and senior year we went as far as it’s possible for a football team to go in our district and won our final game at Giants stadium.  That was a wonderful moment – the football team always cheered for us during our shows and we obviously were always there to cheer them on.  It was fun.  In my high school, we even got a varsity letter for being in marching band, so it sort of counted as a sport.

Now, though, I pass on watching most sports.  My fiance and I watched the World Cup final a couple of years ago, but that’s about it for our interest.  I don’t really watch movies centered around sports, or even play sports video games.  I like my leisure activities sport-free, I guess!

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If you’re like me and interested in history instead of sports, check out my giveaway for Marie-Therese: Child of Terror by Susan Nagel!