(i ran outta space to comment, so i'm gonna hafta reply to grace's response here... stupid backblog)

i think backblog has always had only 10 smilies to use. not that i use em anyways. go for the ol skool ish; :) <- works fine. i use :D all the time though.

and on the issue of somehow knowing all these stats all of a sudden: it's not that hard; it just sorta comes naturally. what comes first is the LOVE OF THE GAME. then afterward, you just become amazed at how the players of the game play the game, and you can't stop spouting stats fresh off of espn.com to back up what you saw.

how do you get this love of the game? my suggestion: just sit down, and start watching some games... front to back. instead of trying to watch from both sides of the game(like in the case of the upcoming superbowl, eagles and patriots), try to follow one team, and root for them from the opening tip-off, til the end of the game(and don't switch sides mid-game if the team you root for is losing; that's a big no-no in my book; stay true; don't be a bandwagon fan :D). pretty soon, you start loving the game for what it is, and then somehow, you start caring about stats or the guys on the team you rooting for coming up huge. "OH! DID YOU SEE WHAT HE DID!" will quickly become part of your vocab :D

the only reason some girls never get to that "love of the game" part is they get together on superbowl sunday, see guys' rowdy reactions to big plays(and not the game itself), and their initial reaction is, "i don't get it; all these stupid guys going rowdy over some man being able to throw a ball and another man being able to catch it." or, "stop acting all depressed cause your team lost." they see the facial expressions, not the game. kinda like that old spice commercial. either that, or some girls see their girlfriends' reaction like that, and they proceed to think they should follow suit. but i'm not a girl, so don't ask me on the patterns that girls do too much. :D

grace, you have a bf right? if he's a big sports fan, next time you two do things together, ask if you can just join him and watch some football every now and then. or basketball(*gives a thumbs up*). or whatever you think you or he would like. this might help out.

(but great, now i got started on blogging, and can't stop)personally though, for me, i got started really liking sports during senior year in high school; my apps were done, i had only 5 easy classes, there was nothing to do, and nbc still had the nba, so i could watch some games(i had no cable @home). i did something rare, and actually watched a basketball game front to back. it also helped that the game was so close, that they had to stretch it to 2 overtimes... i was hooked, and the more games i watched, the more i grew to love this stuff. when i started seeing and appreciating more of the defensive stuff that basketball players did, that got me to loving hard-hitting stuff; guess where that led to; that's right; me starting to really love football.

but of course, you could always say my love of video games helped make this happen; i love sega sports, and when they came out w/nba 2k, that was video game basketball, for the 1st time in my life, done right. it flowed; i played a lot of it during high school, and it, combined with a few nba games on nbc, got me hooked. one of the reasons i also grew to love tennis was also cause sega made virtual tennis, and that it was so fun and realistic.