I say all this but I will be freaking out during the national championship game.

I happened to see the moment happen. It was at the end of Sunday nights Cowboys vs Eagles game. There at midfield one of the Cowboys players, Tashard Choice asked one of the Eagles players, Michael Vick for an autograph. I remember thinking it was a bit odd but quickly dismissed it.

Today ESPN ran an article letting people know that Choice got the autograph for his 2 year old nephew who idolizes Vick. Turns out all sorts of people are ticked off about. To them, it shows disrespect to the game and is a signal that Choice doesn't care enough about the game. I guess the unwritten NFL rule is you must show you are not happy about losing.

Now please hear me, I've been known to get pretty angry when my favorite teams lose. I'm not saying I've figured this one out by any means.

But why do we have to look like our dog died when we lost a stupid game? There are times when we are genuinely upset or frustrated but in a situation like this one, a professional athlete is swallowing his pride and asking another pro for an autograph in front of people. That takes guts. I hate asking for autographs because its demoralizing. I feel as though I must say "Hello person of great importance, I am a dope who would like you to scribble your name in an unintelligible way so that I can take it to my office and prove to my less than impressed coworkers that I saw you in the airport."

A couple weeks ago a couple of Arizona Cardinals players got in trouble because they were laughing at the end of a tail whipping. Now to be fair, they were having an unusually jovial time considering they had done nothing that should give them joy. However the one player followed that up with one of those classic tantrums that will either become a Coors Light commercial in a few weeks or at least make the Not Top 10 on SportsCenter.

I just think sports lose their beauty when we become cavemen about them.

The other night at Carter's basketball practice I sat and watched the father of one of Carter's teammate say "If you don't take this more serious I'm going to grab you by the neck and your practice will be over. This is your last warning." I kept hoping Dr. Naismith (he invented basketball btw) was going to come back from the dead and put a peach basket over the guys head. Seriously, your kid is 7 and plays in a league where they don't keep score. And besides your kid can't dribble. Okay, that last part wasn't necessary.

So here's to being passionate but not blowing things out of proportion. Here's to being competitive but not demanding some stupid response to prove we care. Here's to remember all sports at their most basic level are pretty dumb. Here, chase a piece of rubber around on ice. Here, dribble a ball all over and try to throw it through a hoop 10 feet up. Dumb. But fun . And great experiences when we don't get all bent out of shape because we had a crappy fantasy football draft. I'm just saying.