Why do you love sports so much?

This is a question asked of me on a daily basis. I hear it from everyone; my roommates, friends, parents, family, co-workers, students a work with, my boss, classmates, and even a few professors. Basically as soon as I introduce myself to people or start up a new conversation, my love of sports is brought up rather quickly. Sometimes I mention it, while other times the person I am talking to will bring it up. Either way, it starts me on a story about how my love of sports began and why it gets even crazier during certain times.

Well it all started before I was born actually. Both my parents were athletes, especially my father. His love of athletics led him to becoming a physical education teacher, coach, and athletic director. So I was really just born into sports. I didn't really have a choice, but I wouldn't have it any other way. So as a toddler I got my first experience at a basketball practice. As my parents like to tell me, I shot my first basketball at age 3, participated in my first track meet at age 5, set a volleyball at 6, and started soccer league soon after that. Apparently I was hooked from then on. Since that young age, I have played several other sports with basketball, volleyball, and track being the ones I still participate in. Now that my sports history has been explained my love of sports needs to be addressed.

As a life-long athlete, I could never get enough. I loved every aspect of sports. Whether it was practicing, performing, or simply watching, I wanted to do that all the time. My dad likes to tell me that as a kid, my parents would use playing sports and watching sports on t.v. as my reward for good grades. (That might explain my straight A's til college. But I will save academics for a whole other post.) He will also remind me that many of the hundreds of track meets were my idea, even those that took me cross country. Obviously, my father is a huge reason behind my love. He always made it fun for my to participate and watch. As my coach, he was super tough but made me better every day. He also made sure that I knew that sports could teach me lessons that I would apply once I grew up and had a real job. I can blame sports for my determination, strength, character, perseverance, copious amounts of sports trivia, communication skills, teamwork skills, coaching skills, academic success, life-long friendships, terrific role models, and the endless amounts of entertainment it has provided me and will for many years to come.

Oh, and it introduced me to Nike. As they would say, "There is no finish line."

AJ

First Post

So I decided that the various other social networking sites I use don't give the opportunity to share everything that goes through my mind on a daily basis. Starting a blog seemed like the next step to take. Now I am not promising that my blog will be the most interesting and ground-breaking item that you will read. But I can promise that I will be sharing my thoughts, opinions, and insight on a variety of things. Some may not agree, I welcome any and all different opinions that reside outside of my head. As for the name of the blog, well I have heard countless times that something is just a "simple concept or idea" when in fact it is quite complicated. I decided on this name because my posts will range from simple to complex which on any given day describes me as a person, either simple, complex, or anything in between.

Now that the first post is done, hopefully I will get the chance to share my thoughts on a weekly basis. It may be a simple story from my day or a long post about my frustration with something. I will probably even throw in some sports stories and some family stories if nothing interesting happens that week. My hope is that everyone reading my blog get a better sense of who I am and what kind of things run through a not-so-typical college girl's mind. As Nike says so well, "There is no finish line."

AJ