This video gives you the raison d’etre for the book, It’s
Game Time Somewhere, by Tim Forbes.
This is the theme—watch 100 events, 50 sports, within a year. But why?
This is the story, and the journey to get there. That’s why you’ll keep turning the
pages. And that’s why you’ll nod your
head in agreement.
Not every dream ends when you wake up. Some people are blessed to continue the
dream. Tim Forbes was blessed enough to
drop out of the corporate world and step into his dream world. It’s Game Time Somewhere: How One Year, 100
Events, and 50 Different Sports Changed My Life, relates this dream of Tim
Forbes, who left his successful corporate job and lifestyle to pursue his love
of sports.
Tim and his wife, The Bird, make a deal. The deal was that Tim would support The Bird,
while she went for her MBA, and then the roles would reverse. The Bird would support Tim, while he left his
corporate job and pursued his dream—working in sports.
The tale is the story of what happens to Tim. Starting at Professional Golfers Career
College, to “sports society experiences", the reader is taken on tour in making
life-changing decisions, to disenchantment slowly evolving, back to capturing
excitement. As an adult looking at his
childhood's favorite sports, they seem like love—better the second time
around?
Forbes writing style is fun. His descriptions, surprises, disappointments,
and disgust, are portrayed vividly. The
reader will feel. He calls the
commercials during TV games Television
Interruptus. Watching the games as a spectator at the real
event, he can pick out the wasted time the game is forced to play around, just
to accommodate the sponsors' commercials.
At least at home, you can switch channels, but at the event, itself,
Forbes cries out, “What to do? What to
do…? I’ve got it! Let’s break up the monotony with a beer and a
quick fistfight!”
The Little League World Series had such long breaks
that “Several of the players completed puberty in the time it took to get the
back underway.”
Forbes landed a job in golf, after Professional
Golfers Career College. It soon became a
“job.” After this job, Forbes took up
his “sports walkabout” seriously—50 different sports. And the sports weren't just the big ones:
football, baseball, soccer, etc. He
visited 100 events from car racing, swimming, tennis, kickball, cross country,
curling, etc.
He learned that being a sports fan wasn't as much
fun as it use to be, and it just may be the fans’ fault. But you will see, reading further, it will
depend on the level of the sport. “There
is an undeniable ugliness in the world of spectator sports.” Money spoils the fun.
The amateurs, the second-tier, the no-hyped, fringe
sports, were where the spectators found the most satisfaction. “Smaller just may be better.” Who knew?
Somewhere from packed stadiums to counting heads,
the spectator atmosphere changed for the better. The smaller group lived and died with their
athletes. These second-tier sports had
die-hard followers. They took their
victories and defeats to heart. And get
this—they also took their good attempts
to heart.
Another surprise was learning about the transition
from paying athletes to play, to athletes paying to play. What a concept! This epiphany came when Forbes realized that
The Bird paid an entry fee to run a marathon.
Now here’s proof of an athlete loving her sport. She actually paid for the privilege to play!
There are many lessons, in It’s Game Time
Somewhere. Tim Forbes learns to love
a new sport—lawn bowl; he makes new friends, he has new found appreciation for
some hard working, and deserving athletes, and he has written a book. A good book, that relates how a man learns a
lot about himself, while journaling the process.
