Uncommon Thrills on Sports’ Wild Frontier
As the editor of an alt-press rag, my love of sports often puts me in a tough position. You see, in the alt-press world, sports – especially the organized ones – are rarely looked upon kindly. For the most part, the kids that ended up becoming alt-press types were also the kids that felt the wrath of “jocks” during their school years. The scorn they felt, and the hate they built up for the athletic and popular ogres has only festered with time. These days, their negative opinions of sports are only reinforced by every beer-fueled fist fight that breaks out between obese middle aged white guys at NFL stadiums on Sunday, and every multi-million dollar athlete caught body slamming a hooker while high on crack. The world of sports (the professional ones, anyway) gives haters plenty of ammo. There’s no denying it.
While I played sports in high school, I also smoked a lot of pot and was infatuated by the Who’s rock operas and Weezer’s Pinkerton record – so I seem be one of the rare ones that can appreciate both sides. There’s beauty in competition, I think. Sometimes whipping the snot out of an opponent in a sanctioned athletic event is good for the soul, as is receiving an ass whooping. From a spectator’s standpoint, it’s hard to find better drama than those presented by athletics.
Yet sports and the alt-press remain sadly at odds. Sports are left for the idiotic masses, and the alt-press is left for those filled by so much liberal guilt that the mere idea of competition (unless it’s hipster trivia night at the local tight-pants watering hole) makes them sicker than a tall cup of unfair-trade coffee and a non free-range egg omelet would.
Enter Zach Dundas, and his book The Renegade Sportsman.
Dundas is a former editor at the Willamette Week, and indeed the headshot on the back of his book shows our author wearing a pair of horn-rimmed glasses. He appears small, and somewhat scrawny – and I have no doubt he probably rides a bike everywhere. Dundas looks like your average alt-press type. He just also happens to love sports.
Now, Dundas doesn’t attempt to vindicate steroid fueled idiot NFL linebackers, juiced up homerun hitters with a penchant for smacking their girlfriend(s) around, or the herds of sweatpant wearing Americans who perspire from their couches cheering them on religiously; rather Dundas shows us a world of sports rarely seen – the underground. A place where big business isn’t king. A place where athletes compete for something other than endorsement deals and blowjobs. A place where sport returns to its primal, admirable genesis.
Oh, and also a place where people seem to drink a lot of beer.
Through a journey that begins in Portland and a personal foray with the Hash House Harriers (a worldwide drunken running fraternity, for lack of a better description), Dundas leads readers through hands-on adventures in some of the world’s most little known but pure athletic endeavors, from bike messenger races, to ridiculous Iowan fixed gear endurance tests, to near professional sledding and beyond – all the while revealing what we all (or most of us) knew about sports all along: at their heart, stripped of all the crap society has piled like nacho cheese on top of them, they’re pretty fucking cool. “Sports” is not a bad word.
“I like to think that I started this quest not because there’s something wrong with sports, but because there’s something right about sports,” writes Dundas in the introductory chapter.
It shows. And it’s a very refreshing approach.
You have a limited amount of time, so why spend it reading about things that suck or are only kind of okay? Favorite thing EVER is not a review site. We're unrepentant fans, and this is the stuff we love. Hope you like gushing, because we're about to embarrass ourselves.
What’s he got to say about Roller Derby?
This is the part where I admit my unnatural love for sports movies. You don’t even need to give me an alternative take on them — just throw some football up on the screen and I’m all like, “No! You can’t let the bad guys win the big game!”
Also, there’s a scene in “Any Given Sunday” (the one where Al Pacino pompously spouts the film’s title) that literally changed my life by convincing me not to be such a competitive ass all the time.
You were exposed to the Bad News Bears at a tender time of life, weren’t you?
Ha! I love that movie so much. (Plus, the motorcycle kid grew up to play Rorschach in Watchmen!)
Thanks so much for the review. In answer to the commenter’s question, there is an entire chapter about roller derby in the book.
Sweet. Part of me wants season tix to the Rat City Rollergirls, but the creampuff in me doesn’t want to see anyone wipe out and get hurt!
Seriously, folks. She barely made it through “Whip It.”
But getting hurt is the point, right? It proves their tuffness!