Why Wokeness Won’t End My Love of Sports

While many refuse to continue watching sports and supporting teams due to the infiltration of woke culture, I just can’t bring myself to do the same. The place of sports in my life and family has been too significant, and though I’m appalled by the direction that sports culture has been trending, the positive memories remain too strong to reject sports all together.

I remember my family’s weekly trips for “Sunday Dinner” growing up where aunts, uncles, cousins, and grandparents would gather for quality time. It was at these dinners that my Grandma passed her love for cooking to me… and her love for sports. The Dodgers leaving Brooklyn broke Grandma Lena’s heart, but she learned to love the Mets. Depending on the season, the entire family would watch Baseball, Football, Basketball or Hockey together. I regard the tradition dearly, and even continued it with my own children and grandchildren.

As the woke culture within sports has gotten progressively worse, so has the culture between fans who are divided over whether or not they continue watching the games. What a few loud-mouthed players and woke executives have done to sports is a disgrace, but it’s important that our answer to this behavior not be what we accuse “the other side” of doing– canceling people.

I won’t change myself for the worse to match others who have already gone down that road – I love the sizzle the garlic cooking, the smell of sauce bubbling and sounds of a game on the TV- ANY GAME! It’s comforting and brings back nothing but great memories for me.
In 10 years, leagues will have nearly completely turned over their rosters – both on the field and off and there will be a new crop of personalities who perhaps will be different. Until then, I will no longer support leagues by purchasing merchandise – and my $10 digital antenna gets me all the local sports I could possibly want, for free.

I know I’m still supporting this behavior by watching in a sense – because I refuse to have a few bad men and women ruining a lifetime of great family memories – for the love of the game and
the love of family. If one cancels everything and stops doing something you love – then you let the ugliness win.

I get a good laugh at all the hate that follows when someone posts something good about a team they like. It makes me wonder if the haters ever really felt the love of family or game that I have felt.