Orphan Sports

This sports writer seemed to feel the same way, and his commentary indicated he knew nothing about swimming as a competitive sport.
             I wanted to respond to his indictment of my chosen sport. I decided to write a letter to the editor. This man needed to know that in two paragraphs he had dismissed the training and competition of 13,000 children in the Northern Virginia Swim League alone, to say nothing of the parents who run the teams, the meets, and the league. And what about the .
             kids in other counties and states? How could he say that it was not a 'real' sport?.
             I never finished that letter. I knew I wanted to respond but every response I started fell flat; I was not finding a satisfactory way of expressing my feelings. Over the next few weeks the article sat on my desk and kept catching my eye. At times the article still made me angry. At other times the article just made me sad. Eventually what the article did was to make me stop and think about what I've come to consider the Orphan Sports.
             By my definition Orphan Sports are those sports that have a select and loyal following but are often not given a great deal of respect and consideration as real sports. They have many followers, but not a lot of sponsorship. Some examples are swimming, wrestling, curling, and even caber tossing. All these sports involve a great deal of training, a great deal of effort, but not a great deal of glory. Usually there are groups of people who refuse to consider these activities as sports. I came to the conclusion that no one understands what is truly involved in a sport unless they participate in it as an athlete, a parent, an official, a league official, or an informed spectator.
             This article started me thinking about all those other sports as well as swimming. For starters, what about women's soccer? Organizers are disbanding the Women's Soccer League because they cannot get corporate sponsorship, because people like to watch men play rather than women.