Are you into sports? If so, tell me about your sports interests!

[Eon]

So we're all big dumb nerds and like big dumb nerdy stuff. Just because one of the subjects to nerd over involves athletics doesn't make it any less nerdy. I decided to make a thread and see if anyone here is engrossed in the world of sports. With the recent boxing thread, I figured it'd be cool to get a thread going for general sports discussion since this website has people from various corners of the world. The recent thread about boxing was kind of an inspiration for this. So post here letting us know what sports you are a fan of, and use this thread for general questions on sports you don't know much about.

Disclaimer: This is not a thread to have discussions on why some sports are better than others, I don't care if you think baseball/rugby/golf/boxing is gay/stupid/whatever. Either way, most professional athletes in any of these activities could either beat you up and take your lunch money, or laugh at your bank account you big stupid nerd.


I hate when people make thread without offering their own incite, so I'll start us off.


It's no big secret that I'm a big fan of American Football.

What the hell is going on here? **** if I know.


Contrary to popular international belief, the pads/helmet these guys wear do not cheapen the physicality of the sport. In fact, it has the opposite effect. Because you've given world class athletes armor and a big rock to put on their head, these guys not only weaponize their bodies, but the gear they have on as well.

These kinds of helmet-to-helmet collisions are very controversial in the sport, and are moving more on their way to being banned due to gruesome after effects from multiple blows to the head. But whatever, back to the sport itself. I'm a big fan because of the general mix of strength, speed, and technique. It's a gigantic chess game. You have 11 players with their own specialized job, each like a gear in a massive machine. If one man fails to do his job, an entire play can be utterly ruined and the momentum can start to shift. The scheming and logistics that goes into the collegiate and professional ends of this sport is insane, there is just as much time spent with your nose in a book/ass in a film room as there is in the weight room. The general international criticism from this game is that it's too slow, and that there is too much time in between individual plays. This is partially true due to the heavy commercialization of the sport, however it keeps the players from having to suit up with a billion logos on their uniforms. To me it's something I grew up watching, and it's like watching a long battle playing out. There are games that are intense right to the very ends, although you do have your fair share of blowouts.

I'm also a fairweather baseball fan and am pretty big into college/professional basketball as well, so I've got no problem discussing them.

Some more wacky plays from the NFL:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rFcsWB6CgOw Jerome Simpson's front flip
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PH5_fIKPvCU Cam Newton Doin' Thangs
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BrK-3_YW-yE RG3 being all RG3
http://www.nfl.com/videos/baltimore...7/All-Angles-Jacoby-Jones-Super-Bowl-TD-catch - Joe Flacco and Jacoby Jones embarass the 49ers on a long bomb during the super bowl




Now for sports I'm interested in:
I've been wanting to get into American Football's grandfather; Rugby. I've watched clips here and there and the game does look extremely interesting, so I have a few questions:

What the **** is a scrum? Is it something to decide possession of the ball? What brings up a scrum?


What the **** is the difference between Rugby Union and Rugby League?


What's the difference between Australian Rules Football and Rugby? And why does it look so awesome?




Feel free to ask me questions on any of the sports I listed above or just tell us what you like/why you like it.


Aaaaand go.

 

[Specht]

Racing. I just ******* love racing.

Not just a category of racing, but pretty much ALL OF THEM: F1, NASCAR, INDY, SUPERCARS, WEC, FIA GT, WRC... you name it, its got wheels and a motor, I love it.

I would imagine that growing up in Brazil during the Senna era may have influenced me, a lot.

Unfortunately I never got any support from my parents whatsoever, so I could only start racing when I started earning my own money, right now I race at an amateur championship of go karts, started last year (which I won the championship). I wish I had more money to try professional racing.

[video=youtube;5g5ORvXxZnA]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5g5ORvXxZnA[/video]

I'm the guy with the gray helmet, that crash left me with pain in my ribs for over a month.

I was invited by the local race track where we have our championship to have a special Red Bull sponsored race with other invited people, the winner would qualify for the world championship of go karting. Too bad go karts in there don't always perform equally, and mine was particularly slow this time, so I finished 12th out of 30, missing the only opportunity I had so far for entering a professional race driver career. D:

 

[Eon]

Wow! That's pretty cool! Keep following your dream, I'm sure you'll breakthrough! Just do your best to network with likeminded people. Get some friends and make small investments to build your own ratrod or something and see what happens! If it's your passion just keep throwing yourself into it. It's mentally healthy to have a hobby to dedicate yourself to as well. I was a very naturally skilled pitcher for baseball in high school, but fell into the wrong crowds and lost a lot of motivation, so I'm stuck wondering "what-if" a lot of the time.

I'm not a big NASCAR person, mainly because of how alike all the vehicles are, but then again the standardization makes competition fair. I've recently gotten into watching Euro-circuits, (I forget the official name, but I liked that they had Porsches, BMW's, and even some American cars) mainly from the large variety of the vehicles and the tracks are a bit more than simple ellipses. Indy cars own though. It takes a special kind of person to get into racing, as its one of the more dangerous sports. I don't have the balls for it, so good on you Specht. Like I said before, don't give up and I'm sure you'll breakthrough somehow. I might still have a few contacts that work on vehicles for amateur/semi-pro drag races that I could try to bug and get you in touch with, but I'm not sure how much use American contacts would be to you.


As for questions: Have you tried getting involved in other aspects aside from driving? Like pit crew or anything? That aspect of racing interests me as well. Also do people cheat/do underhanded shit in the go-kart circuit? If so what kind of stuff/illegal modifications have you witnessed?

 

[Viper]

I'm into playing basketball. Not a big fan of watching sports being played, though. Well, unless people fall, trip and other shenanigans happen on the field/court/ring.

 

[Deverz]

I can try to answer some of these although I am not too sure about the finer points of rugby

Now for sports I'm interested in:
I've been wanting to get into American Football's grandfather; Rugby. I've watched clips here and there and the game does look extremely interesting, so I have a few questions:

What the **** is a scrum? Is it something to decide possession of the ball? What brings up a scrum?

A scrum is as your said a way to decide possession. I think it occurs when possession is in doubt but I'm not sure how they come to the decision it's in doubt

What the **** is the difference between Rugby Union and Rugby League?

My Dad calls Union a 15-man-a-side brawl. I think the main difference is number of players on the field making Union more physical and aggressive
I think league has 7 per side? (not sure google will know) and union must have 15

What's the difference between Australian Rules Football and Rugby? And why does it look so awesome?

Quite a lot. They are very different sports

The aim of Rugby is like american football to get Try's (Touch downs).
After a try the team then tries to kick a goal from the same point the touch down accorded at a pre-determined distance to increase the point worth of the try.
They can also kick goals on the run but this doesn't happen often as it's not worth the risk of losing possession

In Rugby the ball can only be thrown backwards the only way it can travel forwards is by being held or kicked.

After 5 tackles the ball changes sides

At the start of each return to play the ball is kicked by one team as close to their own goal as possible where the other team takes possession. The aim of this is to give your less distance to cover but the other team as much as possible

That's about all I know. I hope I explained it all ok

AFL on the other hand is a much faster paced sport than NRL (Yeah that's right I'm using abbreviations now)

The aim of AFL is to kick Goals and to a lesser extent points

http://webmaths.files.wordpress.com/2009/07/afl-goalposts.jpg

Between the taller middle posts is worth 6 the outer sides are worth 1. In the pre-season matches they have a rule where if you kick a goal from outside 50m a goal is worth 9 points making difficult kicks more rewarding

The ball can travel in any direction and is transferred between players by hand-balls or kicking. Throwing is illegal

Handball
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JbJ9IYRoFeI

If the ball is kicked over 15m and caught without touching the ground this is called a Mark (one of the best displays in AFL) and the player is able to stand still and pass the ball on as he pleases without interruption (Time limit applys)

Marks of the Year 2012
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wc0dZdorN7s

After a Goal the ball is returned to the centre to restart play (I will cover this shortly) after a point the opposing team takes possession and kicks from the goal square (A small patch of ground in front of the goals)

At the start of each return to play or after a undermined possession the ball is bounced or thrown into the air and one member of each team tries to punch it away to another member of their team

I'm probably missing a lot of information here or it could be unclear

Feel free to ask follow up questions

Edit

Visual comparison
Afl
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vragQrixx-k

Nrl
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eYHEbIbVM7A
What you see at about 35sec is what happens after a tackle (I think they might call a successful tackle a down)

 

[Eon]

very informative post. I have a website bookmarked that pretty much streams all sports so I'll definitely give AFL a shot since the season seems like it's about to start. NFL kickers are starting to be recruited from the AFL. instead of tiny guys being specialists were starting to see these massive Aussies kicking off and being able to stand a chance physically when someone tries to block them.

Those catches on the marks are insane. I noticed a lot of the time a player practically jumps on top of an opponent to catch those. Are there rules on interfering with a catch attempt? or can you demolish a guy just as he tries to catch the ball? Just from that video the pace of that sport is crazy.

 

[Deverz]

There are no rules outside of normal tackling rules about demolishing a guy who is trying to take a mark (No in the back or high tackles)

 

[Eon]

Just watched those videos you posted Dev.. I think i grew an extra set of balls watching that afl video that shit looks intense. The similarities between rugby and American football helps me grasp the rules a bit better.

if I get into Afl I'll have to pick a team to follow. Are there teams that are perpetually terrible to avoid? I wouldn't want to get attached to a franchise after viewing a couple of good showings only to find out they haven't had a title since their inception.

also is there a team that's "always good" that uninformed fair weather fans attach themselves too? I hate those kinds of "fans" and need to make sure i don't fall into that category by picking one of those organizations lol

also it's nice to see real proper tackling, i imagine if a euro or Aussie sees NFL "tackling" they'd scoff at the form, since the sport is more focused on heavy, high speed collisions to jar the ball loose. I'll post done videos on a bit since i'm using my mobile.

edit: here's an example
http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=CbMBW7GmX1E

in the NFL you have to wait until the receiver is in the actual process of catching the ball until you can attempt to prevent it. this doesn't make a defender useless as you can keep up with the receiver and anticipate his route so you can try and redirect or disrupt said route. however within A certain distance from where the play originated (aka.The Line of Scrimmage) you can shove or bump the receiver to physically impede his route. The video linked is an example of excellent timing by the defender who collides with the reviver to disrupt the receiver. As long as you don't drill his head its legal. (notice its a clean shoulder to chest hit)

 

[Deverz]

I'm not a religious follower but most teams seem to cycle on how well they are doing

At the end of every season players are traded and the top teams get last pick so it helps the lower teams get the better players up for trade

Right now try to avoid liking Greater Western Sydney Gaints (GWS) or Gold Coast Suns. They are new teams introduced this year and last year so the general consensus around here is they suck.

Collingwood is a high target for ridicule also

 

[Eon]

ah cool. The NFL does the same thing but there are teens that have been awful for decades. However there has recently been a salary cap introduced do teens can't have the best players forever anymore. it negated the advantages certain franchises had by having a more frugal owner. This had resulted in a lot more parity.

Good to hear the AFL has parity, I love a sport where the difference between the best and worst teams are very little as far as talent

 

[Deverz]

Good to hear the AFL has parity, I love a sport where the difference between the best and worst teams are very little as far as talent

AFL also has a salary cap which means teams can't hire all the good guys

Don't get me wrong though when a team is bad they are really bad

For example last year out of 22 games the top team had a W/L of 17/5 the bottom team had 2/20

I've seen seasons where the top team finished with 1 loss and the bottom team finished with 1 win.

Coaches get fired mis-season if a team is doing poorly and sometimes it can bring around a great change, sometimes it's just because the players are bad

 

[Eon]

yea the same happens in the Nfl. teams can have great our terrible sessions depending on coaching or the current team just bring terrible for a year or two.

as far as coaching, my team fired their offense coach midseason and the team went beastmode and marched to and won the super bowl. Its crazy how much a role Morale and/or leadership can affect a team of athletes especially when the team itself remains unchanged i'm the midst of a season

 

[Prozac]

I'm not really a sports fan, I like watching big events though. European/world football championships and the olympics, but that's about it...
Owh I also enjoy speed skating. You can compare it to nascar-racing but with less rednecks and cars.

My favorite is beach volleyball though. However, for some reason, I'm always done with it after like five minutes orso.

 

[Zeonix]

As an overweight 39 year old who lives in his mommy's basement, I'm not really into sports. That said, I'll watch major events like the World Cup or Superbowl. I, too, used to watch the Olympics, but they're getting pretty ridiculous with the events. Synchronized swimming? Really?

 

[IFlip92]

I do like the NFL but I never actually get to watch it and the same goes with Basketball. This is usually due to them being on at ridicolous hours because of the time differences between US and UK and I can never bring myself to go watch a recorded game and I don't particularly know why. One thing I can never get into though is Football. I will never understand why it's so glorified and highly paid and why people love watching it. Compared to other sports like the NFL it feels so lame and underskilled.

However, I am a big fan of cars and motorsports and the one which particularly interests me is Drifting. I sometimes watch Formula Drift live on a website when I can bring myself to stay up late and I also watch many many videos of it and cars in general in my free time on Vimeo and Youtube. I make my share of efforts to get into the sport too, but being a Uni student means I don't have much money (I don't even have a TV) so, so far what I have done is I have taken up some drifting courses with a team named Learn 2 Drift (formerly known as Slide School Drift Academy) and that went pretty well and I got to be friends with most of the people on the team so I effectively expanded my contact list for the future when I get into the sport myself . I have been on plenty of passenger rides in all sorts of cars and I can never get enough! I also have a steering wheel for my PC setup and I drift in all sorts of games like Grid, Dirt, I use it for Forza on Xbox as well (but planning to sell that).

For people that don't know what drifting is, it is basically the most fun you can ever have in a car as it basically revolves around what everybody wants to do in a car as soon as they get in it xD. It's a fun sport in which you shred lots and lots of tyres by purposelly losing your rear wheel grip using something called an "initiation" which can typically be done in 1 of 6 ways but most commonly used are handbrake, powerslides and "feints".
[video=youtube;V0rKhPr4DdA]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V0rKhPr4DdA[/video]

Drifting is a judged sport that originated in Japan on their famous mountain passess (nowadays known as Touge Drifting) and its purpose from a motorsport standpoint is to get as close as possible to clipping points set by the judges along a predetermined relatively short track section (a few chained corners) while having the car in what seems like an out of control state the whole time. The driver is then judged based on a few things:
-how well he followed the judges' desired racing line along the course
-how close he got to the clipping points
-how much angle the car has (the more the better)
-how much smoke he made out of his tires
-how much speed he had throughout the drift
-sometimes they also judge the speed of the drift transitions (snappier is better)

Now if this all sounds quite easy to any of you, in actual competitions you also have something which is called twin drifting, also know as tandem or "twinning" which involves you and your opponent going head to head against each other. There are 2 rounds (sometimes more but will cover this later) per "battle" in which each of the opponents get their turn at leading. The purpose is to stay as close as possible to your opponent and mimmick their racing line as best as you can without spinning or straightening up. If both drivers are very good and a decision can't be made by the judges, the audience can shout out "One more time!" at which point the drivers have to go again as many times as necessary until one of them performs better than the other and a winner can be picked. Drift events usually carry on over 2-3 days, first day being the qualifiers and 2nd and 3rd days being the actual race for the podium of that round. There are typically 7 or 8 rounds in a year depending on the championship and these head-2-head twin battles are not just a one time event, they happen all throughout the qualifiers and races from top 48 to the last 8 drivers which determine de top 4 that walk away with points in the championship as well as a podium for that round.
[video=youtube;6OMA66FLPG0]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6OMA66FLPG0[/video]

For those that may want to watch it, the best championships to follow are D1GP in Japan, FD in USA, D1NZ in New Zealand, DA in Australia, JDM Allstars Europe and BDC in UK. There is also the Polish championship which is awesome but I can't think of its name right now.

Now, while I get busy finishing Uni and gathering money to get into drifting myself as my dream is to become Drift Champion, I have also began volunteering for a motorsport media company named Togethia and I am helping them film Time Attack 2013 which is going to be one of the best things ever this year! Time Attack is different in the way that you don't race other people, but rather you race the clock every single time you get on the track. Some could say that you race yourself to try and beat your best times all the time. It is quite exciting as the cars are very very powerful in this type of racing (also very expensive) and they are very heavily tuned to have lots of downforce and therefore grip to stay on the track at high speeds. With this type of racing you get cars that have certain HP to fit into different brackets or "clubs" and they race in their particular bracket's championship. Similar to drifting, they also have about 7-8 rounds per year that each spans over 2-3 days with the first day being qualifiers and the 2nd day being the actual racing. From what I have experienced from filming the last round last year with Togethia, this type of racing is very different particularly in the Pit Stop area! It is very nerve racking as you have a screen in there that updates real-time as drivers finish laps so you sit there bitting your nails to see if you make a better time than the others. Even I was getting very excited even though I had no idea who to cheer for haha.
This video here is the one I helped film. I was responsible for putting the onboard cameras in all the different cars:
[video=youtube;yvb7Xcm1nzA]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yvb7Xcm1nzA[/video]

 

[Deathshot]

Racing. I just ******* love racing.

Not just a category of racing, but pretty much ALL OF THEM: F1, NASCAR, INDY, SUPERCARS, WEC, FIA GT, WRC... you name it, its got wheels and a motor, I love it.

I would imagine that growing up in Brazil during the Senna era may have influenced me, a lot.

Unfortunately I never got any support from my parents whatsoever, so I could only start racing when I started earning my own money, right now I race at an amateur championship of go karts, started last year (which I won the championship). I wish I had more money to try professional racing.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5g5ORvXxZnA

I'm the guy with the gray helmet, that crash left me with pain in my ribs for over a month.

I was invited by the local race track where we have our championship to have a special Red Bull sponsored race with other invited people, the winner would qualify for the world championship of go karting. Too bad go karts in there don't always perform equally, and mine was particularly slow this time, so I finished 12th out of 30, missing the only opportunity I had so far for entering a professional race driver career. D:

I used to drive a Super Late model and Open Wheeled modifieds on the dirt track when I was 17. Oh man. That is an awesome feeling.

It's like if you took Nascar, put them on dirt, and added drifting.

 

[hleV]

Basketball here. I go to a game at least twice a month, though my city's team really sucks ATM. Also play it myself a little. Frankly, most of my closest friends are not into watching basketball, so I have to drag them into bars to watch a game on TV while drinking beer :/. Soccer is liked here as well, though I much more prefer rugby and American football, unfortunately they're not too popular here. Was also into Bushido back when I was a kid. Not sure where did that go.

 

[Specht]

As for questions: Have you tried getting involved in other aspects aside from driving? Like pit crew or anything? That aspect of racing interests me as well. Also do people cheat/do underhanded shit in the go-kart circuit? If so what kind of stuff/illegal modifications have you witnessed?

Me, my brother and a couple of cousins (I have dozens of cousins) had a website of photos of exotic cars, we used to go to special events as 'press', for example, an Audi event on the local race track, where we got to drive Audi TT's, RS5's, and I even rode on an A3 modified for a race series:

I took this picture, we drove the blue car (RS5), and rode as a passenger on the A3.

[video=youtube;sOJdv85sR8k]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sOJdv85sR8k[/video]

This is my brother filming his ride on the A3, the driver wasn't really giving it the beans (probably because of the light drizzle and cold tires), but it was quite an experience.

[video=youtube;oUFPFN136rk]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oUFPFN136rk[/video]

A race we went on a road trip to see, believe it or not, this video was recorded with a cellphone.

This is us going to (or coming back from) the race.

This is us there, it was rather cold, the sensation was something like -6º celsius because of the wind, it's rare to get that cold here.

As for cheating, the karts of our local race track have 13HP engines, but they are limited to 9HP (you have to have a minimum number of races in order to be able to race with 13HP, we plan on having a special race with 13HP by the end of this year's championship), and I've heard stories from people of other championships of people trying to 'unlock' more power from the engines by messing with a certain spring on the engine.

This weekend we had the first race of this year's championship, as usual, I was on a huge hangover, and I was also in quite a lot of pain since the day before the race I had decided to go back to the gym after spending a whole year as a lazy ****, when I woke up, I had decided to not go racing, then I changed my mind and went there anyway. During the qualifying session, my kart was literally spraying gasoline all over me, so I had to stop, they tried to fix the problem, I had another go and it was still soaking me in gasoline, so I switched to another kart, but by then the qualy was over, and I had to start from the back, which doesn't really bother me, because it makes the races more exciting. On the first lap I was already gaining a lot of positions, must've passed 5 of them until one that I was passing on the outside decided to use THE ENTIRE track (including the kerb) which left me with, well, grass. I spun and fell back into last place and far away from the group, the races are rather short, but in the next 17 laps I managed to overtake 14 people and finish 3rd (I was gaining on the leaders aswell, but there just wasn't enough time for me to catch them) setting the fastest lap of the race, kinda frustrating, because I know I would've easily won that race.

[video=youtube;0FxA9K0iKVk]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0FxA9K0iKVk[/video]

This video is from this weekend's race, I show up at 12:35 battling for 5th (if I'm not mistaken). I really need to buy a camera to film my races, because they seem to be a lot more exciting than my friend who films all our races. (Notice that I also already bought my own helmet, now I just need to buy my own racing suit).

 

[Deathshot]

My sports are American Football ( If you haven't seen mine and Eon's Football thread ), Almost all Motorsports, Basketball, Tennis, Kickball, MMA, and Boxing.

Played Football all through High School. We even went to State but ended up losing in the semi-finals by 2.

As I said above, I got a lucky chance in being able to race on a dirt track in Super Lates and Open Wheel Modifieds.

I as well played Tennis and Golf as Hobby sports for myself with friends randomly.

 

[Specht]

As I said above, I got a lucky chance in being able to race on a dirt track in Super Lates and Open Wheel Modifieds.

That must've been awesome, I envy you.