Sports Geeks

Back in 2004 Wil Wheaton and I sat on a "being a geek" panel in which we talked about how there are sports geeks, comic geeks, Star Trek geeks... all kinds of geeks. One of the attendees asked why it was that the "jocks" (AKA "sports geeks") in high school picked on the drama geeks and the D&D geeks and the rest of the "lesser" geeks. There was some head-scratching, but I think my answer resonated with the group: It's pride. We want to think that our tribe is better than anyone else's, that our passions are more important, and among adolescents especially, that leads us to disregard whatever similarities we may share, and focus instead on things like how D&D players are not as physically fit, generally speaking, as those who follow sports. I was a drama geek, a D&D geek, and a rock-band geek in High-school. These days I'm much lower on the totem pole with "webcomic geek" at the top of my resume. But I don't worry about that. Grownups like me try to focus more on similarities. Like how much this sports geek looks like a furry. SeaHawks Fan at Superbowl Xwhatever, courtesy CNN Thank you, and good morning.