Showing My Roots (A Mother's Day Tribute)

Many people often ask me how I got to be so interested in sports. This is usually the follow- up question to "did you play sports in high school" after they find out I have two sport management degrees (for the record, no). Truthfully, the answer is quite simple: I am NOT the original sports-o-nista.

You see, while I may have coined the term (or at the very least brought it to your attention), my passion for all things sports and sport-related comes from a source close to me....my mother.

My mother is a woman who can still tell you about the Shepherd College football games she attended as a young girl with her aunt and uncle. Her father, having no sons, would cart her and her friends all around the state to attend athletic events.

She is a woman who, especially during college football season, is a virtual encyclopedia for all things ESPN programming-related. On any given day, I can get a phone call from her just to tell me something that was said on Sports Center, Around the Horn, or PTI (or heck, all three). How many among you can say your mother even KNOWS what Around the Horn or PTI are?




At one of the many Gator Bowls we've attended


(Quick shout out to my dad who totally does not know what those shows are. This is the man who tried to buy me NHL tickets during the lockout. And who also bought me a scale for my birthday one year so I wouldn't get fat in college. But that's a story for another day, right dad?)




A fan through wind, sun, snow and rain (rain pictured here)

 Anyway, she is the woman who once got into a fight with a college basketball coach, who thinks all WVU athletes are part of our family, and who bought me a drawing of Pat White, Steve Slaton, Noel Devine, Owen Schmitt, and Jock Sanders because she couldn't bear the thought of anyone else owning it.

She is the woman who got so emotional after West Virginia beat Oklahoma in the 2008 Fiesta Bowl that she sat on my bed and cried for a good five minutes, and the woman who advocated for me when I wanted to go to the Champs Sports Bowl this December and no one else wanted to.

She's the woman who always tells me I need to have my priorities straight. Those priorities would include spending over $1000 from my savings to buy a seat at a National Championship football game should the opportunity ever present itself.

She'll miss your wedding if it's in the fall and WVU is at home. She'll walk up to a random tall guy in a mall to ask if he plays basketball. She leaves the room if she has to listen to something on the radio because "she can't control the outcome", and she ALWAYS stays through the end of the game.

So she's also somewhat crazy (and yes, mom, I used the word "so" just for you). But her enthusiasm and knowledge has helped shape a large part of who I am today. For that, I thank you mom. I wear the passed down crown from the original sports-o-nista with honor and pride. Oh yeah, one more thing...I love you. Happy Mother's Day!

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This post was originally going to be called "A Blog for Mama". Then I realized that my stroke of title genius was due to the fact that I had already read a hilarious Mother's Day post of the same name written by the very funny (and lesser-known friend of Mark Titus/Club Trillion) Andy Keller. I hope my mother appreciates my tribute half as much as his mother probably did his.