Two days ago, I announced the launch of the Sports Freewriting group. It's time for the first challenge, which will last until next Tuesday (a full 7 days). For full rules and details, read the launch post here.

To sum it all up, to participate, all you have to do is write non-stop for 10 minutes on the topic "the sport I don't understand," and spend 5 minutes cleaning it up. You will be eligible for upvotes and 50 SCR (two prizes of 50 SCR will be given each week if enough contestants participate). Below you'll find my freewrite on this topic.

My Freewrite on "The Sport I Don't Understand"

To be honest on this topic, there are many sports I really don’t understand, which makes me feel really stupid considering I’ve been following sports my entire life. I even tune into ESPN, ESPN2, ESPN8, etc. to watch the random sports happening on the outskirts of the world.

Before I try to think of the sports I can’t really understand, I feel like I should define what “don’t understand” means. Does it mean that I don’t really get how it works, don’t know the rules, or I can’t fathom why anyone on God’s green earth would ever like or play this sport?

I think it’s probably a mix of all three, but for this freewrite, I’ll stick to sports that I don’t know the ins and outs of, and because of that, tuning in would make it difficult.

Sports I can think of that I don’t understand:

• Cricket

• Curling

• Badminton

• Handball

• Racquetball

Something interesting I began to notice about all of the sports above is that I would love to play each of them, except possibly cricket due to the difficulty of playing (at least it looks difficult). Something else that stands out from this list is that although I don’t understand these sports, I’ve tried. I’ve read over articles on Scorum about cricket and have watched a documentary on Curling. I’ve played Badminton and cheered for the US Handball team in the Olympics. I’ve seen racquetball played nearly 100 times in the gym, but I have no clue what the rules are other than needing to keep the ball in play while trying to make sure your opponent can’t return the ball.

With my list above, I know I’m missing 100+ sports I don’t understand. There are traditional sports of countries far away from my little bubble that are happening that I haven’t even heard of. That’s part of what makes the world of sports so great. There are also new sports popping up all the time, including one that I had the idea for only to see several young entrepreneurs make famous in Europe (Snookball, my version was called Kick Pool).

Sports that are hard to understand -- not that these are, it may be that I’m just too dumb to understand them – make it difficult for new fans and players to join. This has often been said about sports like baseball and hockey, which do have odd rules and are hard to get involved in, however, I grew up around these sports so they aren’t as mystifying.

What sports have you wondering what in the world is going on? I’d love your thoughts below and I would love for you to participate in this freewrite challenge and spend 10 minutes of non-stop writing riffing on what sports you just don’t understand.

Thanks for reading and please share your own freewrite on this topic!

Now it's your turn! Feel free to share a link to your freewrite in the comment section below!