My sporting life

EMC Editorial - Late summer/early fall is a great time of year for the sports fans in my family. You've got the baseball playoffs, my husband's favourite event, U.S. Open tennis, my favourite, and the beginning of the NFL football season, for which my dad lives and breathes.

Despite the fact that tennis is the only one of the three sports in which I'm genuinely interested, all three never fail to bring a smile to my face.

Baseball is just so gentlemanly and aesthetically pleasing. There's nothing like the crack of a bat on a warm, Indian summer evening, or the image of all the people in the stands enjoying their corndogs with mustard and over-priced beer. Burly men in tights aside, football is likewise a very beautiful game. I enjoy the strategy involved, and the way the tackles actually have a purpose as opposed to the showy, goon-like violence you get in hockey.

Still, for me baseball and football will probably never be much more than background ambiance. Like music, they set a mood - something I can half-follow if I so choose, and that will amuse the men in my life while I read or chat with a friend.

Yeah, I tend to watch sports with about as much enthusiasm as I play them.

Don't get me wrong - I regularly played and enjoyed sports growing up, but never with the kind of passion required for anything approaching athletic excellence. Weekly soccer games, for instance, were fantastic opportunities for socializing and enjoying sweet, juicy orange slices. The promise of post-game ice cream in the event of a win was really the only thing that motivated me to put any sort of effort into the game. Otherwise, what did I care if my team won? Life would go on as usual either way.

It always comes as a shock to those who have seen me attempt to play sports that I actually come from a very athletic family on my dad's side. Because both sides of my family have lived in the Kingston/South Frontenac area for decades, my job regularly brings me into contact with people who know my parents from way back. Often I'm asked if I am any relation to Don Pratt.

"Yes, he's my dad," I say.

Usually they reply with some version of "wow, he was one hell of a quarterback back in high school" or "you should have seen him on the basketball court."

Even those who didn't attend Sydenham High School - where my dad went - but grew up in the area in the late '70s seem to have an awareness of who he is.

Such conversations never fail to make my heart swell with pride at the thought of Dad, the "famous" athlete.

All the same, one of my favourite stories - for its sheer irony - details my mom's first meeting with dad's mom.

Apparently, the first thing Nan asked Mom was whether or not she had ever seen my dad play football.

"I just thought it was such a bizarre question," Mom always remarks when telling the story. "How on earth could I ever have seen Don play football when I didn't even know him in high school?"

At least I know where my attention span for sports comes from - although strangely enough, like me, Mom just cannot seem to get enough tennis. Maybe it's a girl thing. After all, tennis is really the only sport where women and men share the spotlight equally.

Still, tennis tournaments are sporadic and brief, and during the school year the majority of my sports viewing is done for my job. Usually, I cover high school basketball, which is conveniently my second favourite sport to watch. Again, it's probably more of an aesthetic thing for me, but the sheer excitement of high school sports - the glory, the rivalries, the electricity that fills the air during a tournament - always makes my day, and such events have become some of my favourite things to cover.

Who knows, maybe they'll make a sports fan out of me yet.