I discussed these sports because they deviate from the norm that our society promotes, such as impact sports like football, basketball and baseball. While these sports remain prevalent in news, media and local communities, every type of sport has its benefits.
Going even further into the realm of miscellaneous sports, I have decided to do a little research into the world of what people may call actual games.
I speak now of board games and video games, which, while not seeming like typical sports, provide a much-needed use of mental dexterity in the realm of competition.
I am a huge fan of video games. Although I have played competitive sports my entire life, I also supplemented those physical sports with video games and games of strategy.
I’m very competitive by nature, and this variation allows for competition that transcends the athletic field.
While I thought of video games and games like chess as just a past time or hobby, I have recently discovered a whole new world that I never knew existed.
After a long day, I walked over to my friend’s house to find him and his roommate seemingly playing Super Smash Brothers Melee. However, at second glance, I noticed that they did not have controllers in their hands. This brought me to the realization that they were actually watching Super Smash Brothers Melee on a live stream.
I admitted to them both that I had no idea that video games were televised, especially one that came out before online play. My friend explained that there are video game tournaments all over the country for all types of games, and that Super Smash Brothers was just a small piece in the growing structure of competitive gaming.
The concept of competitive gaming falls under the broad category of eSports, otherwise known as electronic sports or professional gaming.
While the competitive nature of video games traces back to the creation of video games, the actual viewership has gone up significantly in the past 15 years.
This notion, along with the sponsorship of professional gamers, further adds to the parallel nature of the structure of video gaming competition with athletic competition. These newly formulated venues allow people without a propensity for athletic competition to compete at the highest level in a particular venue.
While professional gaming has made its presence known in lieu of athletic competition in recent history, there are traditional means of gaming that date back much further than video games.
These board games are the original eSports, and while not electronic they offer a way of competing against someone outside of athletic contest and create a fun and concentrated means for victory or defeat against an opponent.
To loosely quote one of my friends here at Hopkins who plays competitive chess on the national level, “Chess is one of the few sports where both you and your opponent are looking at the exact same thing, and you can destroy them while they watch everything that happens to them.”
I believe my inherent ignorance about these sports revolves around the simplicity with which I originally approached them. Both of these things contain so many more complexities and intricacies than I had ever imagined.
I thought I was good at certain games and realized I didn’t even compare. I have lost to a computer in chess probably 100 times, and my friend can beat it.
This just shows that practice makes perfect, anyone can compete in some form of game and that sports are not just limited to athletic competition.
