This weekend we had the chance to eat dinner with a few of the people responsible for organizing the college basketball tournament that will be taking place at Belfast SSE Arena in 2017. One of them was Richard Ensor, who is the commissioner of the Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference (MAAC). Another scholar at Ulster University with me, Ryan Oliver, is familiar with Richard since he attended and played at Sienna College in the MAAC before he was a Victory Scholar. While I didn’t know all of the people that they were talking about over dinner, it was nice to listen to everyone talk about old coaches, teammates and friends. These conversations reminded me how sport can bring people together. Sport has the ability to draw connections from different ages, backgrounds, and lifestyles all over the world that otherwise would not have anything else in common.
I noticed the same thing with my classes and coaching in the previous week. While some people in my program are studying sport management, others are not. It is interesting to see how people engage with each other over disagreements on teams or other issues surrounding sport. I myself entered in a heated debate with one of the kids I just started coaching as well. We disagreed on the bearings for James Harden as an MVP candidate. I had barely new this kid for 15 minutes before we found a common ground over the NBA. To me, that is the beauty of sport. You don’t have to be from the same area, same religion, same lifestyle, or even the same language. It has the ability to draw unlikely, but genuine connections. #SportCreatesConvos
And just for the record James Harden is an awful defender (seriously, go to Youtube and type in “James Harden awful defense”).
