Sports and Drinking

Sports and drinking seem to go synonymously together. You watch the game at the pub over a couple beers. You go for drinks after the game. It just seems to fit. Something so intertwined in our society that it almost comes without choice. It just happens.

The first time I ever drank with a sports team was awkward. I was a rookie on the team and we all went out for dinner the night before a game. Someone had snuck in a bottle of vodka under their jersey or sweater or something and I remember nudging him and telling him to slip some into my sprite.

We went to the arcade after eating and I was playing Dance Dance Revolution. I heard someone shout “AllStar (me) has been drinking!”

I wasn’t drunk by any means. But I remember smiling (and to be honest, kind of hamming up how drunk I was). As lame as it sounds, I guess I felt part of the team and I had a blast that night.

Side-note, the guy who slipped me the vodka, a veteran on the team, had said that I was cool and that no one was “rookie-ing” me that night. I actually avoided getting rookie’d the whole year, so that saved me some embarrassment.

Drinking with sports teams since then has gone a little bit hand in hand. Before that I had reserved drinking with my closest friends and we would just have a blast. But drinking with a sports team seemed to bring a closer bond with teammates.

I don’t really know why I drank that night. I was fortunate really. The team could have kept pumping me with drinks and who knows how I would have ended up. I’m glad they didn’t because we were just able to have a blast.

My point I want to make, to go along with my article in the Uniter, is just drink enough to have a good time. That was a good memory of bonding with a team and all that jazz. I know most drinking stories don’t usually end without regrets (I, of course, do have a few that do) but I think that’s the most important lesson here.

In life, we’re going to do a lot of things that we regret. Just try to limit a few of those regret, just have a few drinks, and just have a good time.

Got any sports and drinking stories you would like to share? Good or bad, with or without regret. Share them and leave a comment!