Following sports can be a powerful way to make friends, network with associates, and relate people in your life.  Most of us have sports that we have experience in, care about, and know inside and out. However, there are so many sports out there it’s difficult to have a comprehensive knowledge of them all.  Sometimes, when you’re with a group of people who have a wide base of knowledge with a sport that you don’t, it’s easy to feel out-of-place or uninterested in their conversations because you’re playing catch up the whole time.

As women, we have a bad reputation for not knowing, understanding, nor appreciating the intricacies of sports.  You never want to ask a group of die hards the rules to a game (or the importance of it) during a watch party. You want to have sound knowledge of what’s going on so you can enjoy and have an insightful view of the game, or at least sound like you know what’s going on (this is what half the guys do anyway. They copy what they hear. Listen to a group of guys talk about a game and then listen to that day’s Sports Center hosts. They’ll have almost exactly the same conversation).

We’ll add knowledge about various sports and some of their crucial rules, terminology, and dynamics. If there’s need, we’ll discuss important history and legends of various sports too.

In general rules to hold on to for watching any sport you don’t know much about:

‘Topics to typically steer away from:

• Uniform colors, design, appeal
• Who a player is married to/dating
• Danger of sport
• Stupidity, dullness of sport
• Someone you knew who played sport (unless they’re playing in the game)
• Something you heard in news about the sport in general (kids in Uganda playing to stop war, scandal debate, injury frequency, etc.)

Topics that are typically safe and/or helpful:

• Team/athlete’s home field advantage
• Who a player used to play for
• Awesomeness of sport
• Player’s athleticism, precision, vision, speed, etc.
• How defensively, offensively minded a team/athlete seems to be playing

Take time to watch athletes as they prepare, compete, recover.  Watch how they interact together.  Be a critical observer of the game.  No matter if you know the rules or not, you can gain some appreciation of what is going on and you’ll pick up on details quicker.

Now Major League Soccer (US soccer) and baseball are winding down, and basketball, European football (Euro soccer), and American football are just getting started.  Fantasy leagues are all over the place and our opportunities for friendships and pub fun are abundant.  Study up, choose a team, and enjoy the spoils of being a fanatic!