It’s funny how serendipity often strikes when you least expect it.
I grew up wondering why everyone insisted on making a fuss about soccer.
This makes more sense when you consider that I grew up in Singapore, a bustling metropolis of about four million people, with no sports infrastructure.
When I was growing up, there were no major domestic sports leagues: No NFL, MLB, NBA or NCAA.
To compensate, people turned to the British – who, given our colonial background, always had the answer to most of our problems. Everyone adopted the English Premier League, and soccer became the de facto national sport – to everyone but me.
I turned to the other side of the world. Instead of waking for Manchester United versus Arsenal, I watched Michael Jordan’s Chicago Bulls.
To a 9-year-old girl, basketball is more fun than soccer. It’s fast-paced and you don’t have to sit for 90 minutes for a goal-less draw.
Over the next few years, I learned hockey, baseball and American football solely through the powers of observation.
Most of the sports loyalties that I hold now are due to my limited resources growing up.
The local media would only broadcast big games, hence my Yankee loyalties. They’re the only baseball team I really got to watch until I moved here.
The first NFL game I watched was Peyton Manning’s first; I have followed his career ever since, and a Colts fan was born.
I decided I liked the Kings when they picked up flashy rookie Jason Williams in 1999; the kid stunned me with every spectacular pass.
I became a Mighty Ducks fan because I was obsessed with the movies while growing up, and that is partially why I ended up in Oregon. Yes, as ridiculous as it sounds, when I chose where to go to college, our mascot was the deciding factor.
Serendipity. Everything happens for a reason.
Now I’m a full-fledged Duck, but guess which sport I’ve been assigned to cover for the Emerald, am taking for PE, and my friends are obsessed with?
Soccer.
This sudden proliferation of soccer in my life started last year, when a friend asked me to join her intramural team. I played for the first time in my life, and had a blast.
Then I met my friend Angie. She’s a soccer player. We watched some of the World Cup together, and made it more fun by creating a World Cup pool at the office.
Then I met my new roommate Chris, who’s a living, breathing soccer addict – he calls it football, just like the English.
Then I started hanging out with Nicole, a friend who once played Division I soccer. The girl’s obsessed to the extent that we spent hours last Saturday shopping for the perfect pair of soccer cleats.
It all adds up. And now, to the amusement of my friends back home, I’m a soccer convert. The game I avoided has finally enveloped me.
See how serendipity always gets you in the end?
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