Where it Started
By: Steven Ngati
Fear and doubt. These are the emotions that I’ve dealt with over the last 10 years when it comes to writing, sports writing, journalism, blogging, or whatever you want to call it. Since I can remember people have showered me with praise in regards to my unusually high sports IQ. I wish I had a better term to describe this so-called gift, but I think it’s better for me to start at the beginning to explain what I mean.
At 5, I was interested in Power Rangers, TMNT, Cartoon Network and anything related to Michael Jackson or Macaulay Culkin. (The Black or White music video was the biggest thing in my life at that time.) Sports was on my radar, but it couldn’t crack the aforementioned list. What I did know was that I liked the Cowboys because my parents LOVED the Cowboys. I followed their lead for one reason; The Cowboys were one of the few things I saw my parents both agree on and thoroughly enjoy together. (Sadly, I never saw my parents in the same place very often unless there was an argument over the bills. Other than that, the only other thing they enjoyed together as much as the Cowboys was watching Three’s Company reruns late at night on our couch in the basement.) Anyways, back to my sports origin story. I didn’t really understand the game of football much, but I looked at Troy Aikman, Emmitt Smith and Michael Irvin like superheroes. I didn’t know anyone else’s name in the NFL outside of Dan Marino because he was my dad’s favorite QB and non-Cowboys player. Plus he was in “Ace Ventura Pet Detective” which made him even cooler. My appreciation, or better yet, my love of sports came over the summer of 1994 when I didn’t go to any summer camps. For whatever reason, my parents thought it would be a great idea for me to stay home and do whatever the hell I wanted, as long as I didn’t get kidnapped or break anything in the house. . Going outside was a challenge for two reasons: 1. I lived on a major road with heavy traffic, so I couldn’t walk to other people’s homes. It kind of eliminated the whole “kids playing with each other in the neighborhood” vibe for me. 2. Summers in Maryland are brutal because of the humidity, so I could only spend limited time playing in the backyard. Because of these factors, most of my time was spent indoors. While most kids my age were obsessed with Super NES, Sega Saturn, or PlayStation, the TV intrigued me because I could control the remote while my parents were off at work. My dominance over this device was short lived because I broke one of the two summer rules in breaking the back of the remote that held the batteries. (Funny enough, my wife broke the back of our remote when we first moved into our apartment and we have scotched taped the thing together ever since. That was one of the small signs that I knew she was The One.) As punishment, my aunt would turn the TV on and whatever channel it was on that was what I had to watch for the remainder of the day. No changes. Late at night before he went to bed, my dad usually left it on ESPN or Home Team Sports. (Anybody who grew up in the Mid-Atlantic area during the 90’s should remember HTS.) Because of my stubbornness to do anything else, I sat there and watched sports channels by myself. Within a few days I was hooked. I remember watching these half-hour edits of all of the 1980’s NBA Finals and I was captivated by the epic music and narration. I would run back and forth in my living room, as if I was running the court with Bird and Magic. I would get nervous every time they showed James Worthy at the free throw line! The music and noise would go absolutely silent as you waited to see if he could sink both shots at the end of the game. (Mind you, I watched that episode maybe 20 times that summer and I got nervous for Worthy every single time. Later in life I realized I was also nervous for Worthy because he wore googles and at the time I had this irrational fear of anyone with glasses being killed by bees because I saw Macaulay Culkin murdered by swarming bees in My Girl after losing his glasses. I was a sweetheart at age five and I didn’t want anyone who wore glasses to be hurt or get hurt….RIP Thomas J Sennett). I loved the contrast between the fans and arenas of LA and Boston. Because it was the 80’s finals I kept seeing the same recurring characters that I would form emotional ties to. Bird, Magic, Kareem, Dr. J, Moses, Hakeem, Sampson, Zeke, Dumars, these guys were warriors to me. I remember each episode ending with someone raising the championship trophy and being covered in champagne and someone else leaving the court sullen in defeat. I fell in love with this dramatic production.
Day after day that summer I would watch these episodes that eventually transitioned into the early 90’s and this new character, Michael Jordan. My goodness this guy was like Superman compared to everybody else. Because of the amount of sports entertainment I was consuming at the time, I was able to develop a true appreciation for MJ. I sat there that summer and watched ESPN nonstop, no cartoons, no movies. They showed Super Bowl episodes and I learned about Bart Starr, Joe Namath, The Purple People Eaters, The Doomsday Cowboys, The Steel Curtain, The Orange Crush, and the Oakland Raiders! (For those who have watched the old school NFL Films highlights how do you not get chills when you here John Facenda say “The Oakland Raiders”? It sounded like the voice of God.) The NFL Films production was sensational to me because of the violence, the nicknames, the heroes, the goats, and the stoic way they would show certain coaches on the sidelines, I get goosebumps just thinking about it!
Despite watching all of this sports content, I still had to make time for my school enforced reading packet. My aunt took me to the library and we checked out three books: one about Troy Aikman, who had just won his 2nd Super Bowl, another one about Jim Abbot, who was a one-handed MLB pitcher, and a third about Bo Jackson, the two sport giant. I soaked those books up to the point where I wanted to get my hands on any sports biography possible. That, combined with my heavy ESPN dosage, caused me to become a junior sports fanatic by the time I was ready for 1st grade.
This infatuation with sports only grew over the years, especially after I started playing football, basketball and baseball. Being on different teams and learning how to play these games was euphoric to me because I was doing the same thing my sports heroes on TV were doing. My love of sports was cultivated on and off the field. So much so that I developed this fierce passion to keep track of stats, hear different commentary of the same event and articulate my opinion about what I had witnessed. I had become a sports fanatic and I didn’t realize it. Problem is, other people did. When you’ve heard things like, “you should be on Sportscenter!” “You can be like Stephen A. Smith!” “You would be perfect on Around the Horn” or even “you’re like the black Schwab!” (Bet y’all don’t remember Stump the Schwab) No lie, I’ve heard these comments since I was in the 4th grade. For whatever reason, I never took those statements as compliments. It always felt like a subtext for me being a nerd or some kind of weirdo. My own insecurity about being intelligent on a certain subject was almost like a curse to me; I want to be viewed as a well-rounded person and not an extreme sports fanatic.
I joined newspaper to help get my voice heard but fear and doubt crept in and held me back from going full tilt with my ideas. I didn’t want to be perceived as someone who was obsessed (or as my high school self would say – pressed).
The thing is, I was called to write and the longer I put it off, the more uncomfortable it became to discuss it. So many people close to me, that truly have my best interests at heart, have begged me to write and publish a weekly blog to share my thoughts with the world. Because of fear, and doubt this seemed impossible. These are the poisonous thoughts that have consumed my thinking for far too long:
“What if I can’t write like I used to in high school?” “What if people think I’m boring” “I’m not as good as a Bill Simmons or a Michael Wilbon” “I have a successful career, a great life, I don’t need to write.” “Writing is exhausting” “There’s already a ton of sports blog writers, what will set me apart?” “What if people think I’m good, can I operate with expectations of being able to deliver great content over and over again?“ “What if I’m not good enough?”
Bottom line, you never know how much you love something until it’s gone. My wife has never read anything I’ve written (besides our personal love letters). She has only heard stories from my buddies of how I have this potential to articulate things in the sports world. My wife, wanting the best for me, decided to give me an ultimatum: I was not allowed to watch another sporting event until I wrote something. Can you believe that? A grown man not being allowed to watch sports in his own home? Unfathomable! Unfortunately, she was serious. Like real serious. Like off some tears in my eyes I’ve been praying for you to start writing again every night serious. That shook me.
It was overwhelming to see how much my wife cared about this passion of mine. With her faith, she cleared up 10 years’ worth of writer’s block. I know I need to start small and develop, but the point is, I’m starting.
Thank you for pushing me, Breanna. Thank you to all of my friends who have pushed me for 10 years to do this. I have no intention of making posts this lengthy all the time, but I wanted to provide an abundant perspective as to where I’m coming from to whoever is reading this. Enough of the heavy stuff, it’s time for me to embrace my gift and do what I’ve always been called to do!
