Sports on Christopher Hitchens

So my good friend Ken Nahigian, renowned Atheist and rabble rouser with whom I usually agree, sent me a copy of a Newsweek article by Christopher Hitchens slamming sports. (Link)

My response is below:
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Yo, Ken!

What bullshit! I've always considered Christopher Hitchens to be an asshole, a petty little whiner, and a rabid ideologue with nothing at all worth listening to to say, and he has proved it yet again.

Of course, and I don't expect atheists like you and Hitchens to value this, but one of my drama professors used to say that watching Jerry Rice catch a pass, like looking at a Michaelangello sculpture, was so sublime that if it didn't show you the face of God it pointed you in that direction. Ok, heavy handed. So how's this instead: from a humanist point of view, just like a Michaelangello sculpture, watching Jerry Rice catch a pass is so sublime that it shows how close man can come to perfection and pure beauty.

Me, I know exactly the etymology of the word "fan" and am proud to call myself one. For every stupid thing in this article I can point to good things about sports--not the least of which is the fact that it is directly responsible for my good life, because without it my dad would never have gone to Idaho on a football scholarship, never become a high school teacher and principal positively affecting thousands of lives, and never have been able to raise me in a nice house in Sacramento and send *me* to college and instill in me the idea that education is valuable. Thank you, college football!

And Christopher Hitchens can kiss my ass.