Bonnie Blogs: She Shoots, She Scores!

Hello Readers,

I thought I'd start off this blog entry with a little bit of Bonnie Kaufman background information. Lucky you, a glimpse into my ever-exciting personal life!

Here's a fact: I've never really been "into" Sports. Don't get me wrong: I'm not now, nor have I ever been, anti-sports. In fact, I've played quite a few of them, from a brief and early encounter with tennis, to short stints in soccer and basketball and, finally, many years enthusiastically playing volleyball for a number of school and club teams. I've always enjoyed the communal experience and certainly the exercise, but my interest never extended beyond the court/field on which I played. Meaning: I'm no spectator. School sporting events? No thank you. Big game on television? I'll pass. Really, for whatever reason, I've just never been able to get excited over a game. You can imagine how popular this made me at Boston College, an environment in which team pride was considered as important as the other Jesuit virtues. You can picture the enthusiasm I was forced to fake, first when the Red Sox won the World Series in 2007 and, later, when the Giants won last year.

I've often been teased for this "girlish" attitude towards sports, with friends and family trying out different ways in which to pique my interests. For many years my parents employed the "You'll Want To Have a Working Knowledge of This Stuff If and When You Date a Sports Fan" technique. And, while I don't doubt that they had my best interests at heart, that particular line of reasoning didn't quite resonate with the young feminist inside of me. Luckily, for many years I managed to avoid becoming romantically involved with any ESPN addicts -- or really anyone, for that matter -- and I was safe to carry on completely unaware of that world, outside of the occasional Big (Bad Behavior) News Story (i.e. Kobe, Tiger, Vick).

Then came Mike. Mike, my boyfriend, is definitely a Sports Enthusiast. From a Massachusetts suburb not far outside of Boston, he's a Red Sox & Patriots devotee, a Bruins believer, and a general "follower" of any game currently in action. He may not be rooting for a particular team, but he's hoping for a good fight. He watches whatever he can, and keeps track of what he can't watch via internet or, when out on the town, via the ESPN mobile application he surreptitiously downloaded to my phone. I guess, as tends to happen, that my parents were right.

But, women, don't turn on me yet! I'm happy to report that I've stayed true to my personal preferences. I've still got no interest in watching these games (though I'll certainly tag along to the sports bar to enjoy a drink or two) and I don't pretend to. But, I'm no longer ignorant of the wide world of sports and, honestly, I'm so very glad. So what's changed? Well, while Mike may not have gotten me hooked on sports, he's gotten me hooked on something pretty darn close: sports writing.

Did you guys know about sports writing? Because I certainly didn't, and boy was I missing out. It started innocently enough, when Mike would email me links to interesting and well-written articles on Deadspin, a site he knew I'd read due to its affiliation with one of my regular sites, Gawker. Through these articles I was introduced to talented writers like Katie Baker, Barry Petchesky, and, sure, A.J. Daulerio, whose other work I began to follow. At the same time, I was steadily working my way through the online archives of legends like Bill Simmons and Joe Posnanski, two of Mike's personal and oft-referenced favorites. (Note: I cannot recommend the writing of Joe Posnanski highly enough. Sure he covers sports, but he's a multifaceted journalist and an incredible writer. He has a piece on one Bruce Springsteen song that consistently brings me near tears.)

This was all a slow and gradual process. I don't mean to give anyone the idea that, of an instant, I was a Sports Illustrated subscriber and ESPN enthusiast. It's just that I'll read anything that really good -- well-written, insightful, relevant -- and, over time, I discovered that a lot of this stuff is really good. So, what's the deal? I have to be honest, it's taken me a little while to figure out. Because, I still really don't know about sports. And, to a large extent, I still don't care about sports. But I do care about people, and I do care about relationships, and I certainly care about passion. Sports writing, if nothing else, is a product of passion. These games, in general, give birth to a particular fervor -- in the players, in the coaches, and in the fans. On top of that base level of emotion, you've got all sorts of complexities and complications: rules and regulations, and the breaking of those boundaries; rivalries and relationships among teams and teammates; a long-standing and well-documented history of the game, and more. This is the stuff that great literature is made of. And the writers -- the writers! Honestly, half of the time, I don't technically know what I'm reading about. I don't know golf terms or hockey rules, but I know life (cheesy, I know), and I can follow along wholeheartedly as a boxing match is deconstructed to represent a brief history of race relations or as a player's errant and outrageous tweet is put into the context of an athlete's changing opportunity for self-expression. These stories are universal and they are worth reading.

And, clearly, I'm not the only one who thinks so, as is evidenced by the recent pairing-up of Simmons & ESPN to create Grantland, a a sports blog for the 21st Century. While it's got traditional sports writing from Simmons, the aforementioned Baker, and others, there's a lot more. Grantland has recruited acclaimed pop culture bloggers & journalists (Chuck Klosterman, David Jacoby, Alex Pappademas, Molly Lambert, and more) to add depth to the site, churning our articles in which lessons from sports are (loosely) applied to other aspects of pop culture, and vice versa. And it's good. Not just because Mike and I can finally and totally meld our respective top interests (sports for him, pop culture for me), but because the content they are providing is top notch, new, and noteworthy.

So, let's wrap this up. As always: What does this mean for BK? While I don't think we're ready for a new BK Games agenda, we could certainly learn from the passion and perspective of these writers. Any ideas?

This was a long one. Thanks for reading!