With the Super Bowl just a couple of weeks away, now is a good time to think about sports and how they relate to family history. Whether you have athletes in the family, sports fans, or both, it is very likely that at least some family members have an interest in sports. If you think about your relatives and what sports they like to play or watch, you may see some similarities between family members. You might also see some major differences of opinion, which can make for memorable family events if there is a game on television featuring the rival teams.
Watching and playing sports can be a great way to bond with your relatives. When you play a post – turkey game of touch football on Thanksgiving Day or get a group together to attend a baseball game during the summer, you are making family memories that will last for years. When I was younger, I did not realize that my annual trip to Fenway Park with my father and my aunt would be something that I would remember well into the future. It is, though, and I am definitely still the Red Sox fan that I was born and raised to be. I look forward to attending baseball games with my husband, my boys, their PaPa Jim, and their great aunt.
As far as actual athletes in the family, two of my cousins are stellar soccer players and another cousin (the only boy out of the eight of us) is an excellent baseball player. My husband is also very skilled at baseball and is generally very athletic – the kind of person who can pick up any sport or game easily. Many people in my family (myself included) love to ski and snowboard, and all of us enjoy spending time outdoors together. In fact, my cousins and I have some special memories of ski trips to Vermont (where I now live) with my dad and his two brothers. We still recount the stories from those trips and look through the pictures, and the memories still make us smile and laugh as much as they did about ten years ago.
The newest generation of my family made its debut a little over two years ago when my son was born. Last year, my cousin also had a little boy. My second son will be arriving this April. The arrival of all of these little boys has brought immense joy to my aunt, who is probably one of the most dedicated Boston sports fans that there is. I am sure that she secretly hopes that out of the three, there will be at least one future Red Sox, Bruins, Patriots, or Celtics player. It will be interesting to see whether any of the little guys grow up to have the same athletic team preferences as others in the family. It will be even more interesting to watch them try different sports and games as they grow, and to see which ones they like the most. If any of them do decide to pursue sports in high school, college, or at any other time, one thing is for certain – they already have a legion of dedicated fans no matter what teams they play for.
Does your family have any shared sports passions or deeply entrenched rivalries?
Photo by alvimann on morguefile.com.