I hate sports.
But just for the sake of family bonding, I took my son over to my parent’s house to watch the BYU vs. Utah game. My daughters came too, though they did not watch the game, but instead played with “Grammie’s toys.”
What an excellently played game. Utah did well, but not as well as I was expecting. BYU did far better than I expected. Really, BYU lost in my opinion due to three factors: 1) the idiots ran the ball on a 4th down when they should have kicked a field goal, 2) there was that bad call that got called as a fumble when it wasn’t, 3) they missed their final field goal.
Especially #3, of course, because the other two can’t be directly tied to the loss in a straightforward cause and effect manner.
Also note that my justifications above are the rational equivalent to saying: “Utah only won because they scored more points as per the rules of the game.” Sort of takes the justification wind out of my sails. Though somehow it makes me feel like I have a moral victory – though now I’m going to have to wonder if I just proved moral victories don’t actually exist.
After it was all done, and the Utah’s walked away with their victory, my oldest daughter came in and asked “Who was playing?” My son and I told her it was BYU and Utah. She then asked, “Who won?” We told her Utah did.
“Oh! I was voting for Utah!” she exclaimed.
My son then needled her for having decide whom she was voting for after she knew who had won. She replied – mind you with complete veracity, “No, I was voting for Utah from the beginning.”
You know, I almost believe her. Since I hate sports, I never talk about teams. So she had no parental prejudice towards BYU just because I and her mother had both attended there. In fact, she didn’t know either of us did.
Furthermore, I’m not sure she even knows what BYU is. (For example, my son had to explain to her that they were near us. But then again, he thought UVU and University of Utah was the same school, so maybe that doesn’t mean much.)
But she surely knows what “Utah” is – that’s her home state! So maybe, given two names (i.e. Utah and BYU) maybe she really had made up her mind — prior to asking who won – that she was voting for Utah.
Worse yet, she and her little sister were both wearing read that day. So maybe she planned this all in advance and she actually knows more about sports than I do.
Yup, that’s probably it.