Stop it Dick Vitale, you're making me cry.

I consider myself to be somewhat of a guy’s girl. I’d rather watch “The Hangover” than “The Notebook”, I’d cut my fingers off before I’d ever TyPe LiKE THiS, and fruity girl drinks? Forget about it and get me a beer – or better yet, a shot of bourbon.

That being said, I caught my estrogen taking over while watching the Texas v. Alabama game last week. I’m an SEC girl, born and raised, so I started off the game rooting for the Roll Tide. Then Colt McCoy got “hurt” (a whole other story, in my opinion), and little baby freshman Garrett Gilbert enters the game looking like a deer in headlights. He’s visibly nervous, and I start to feel bad for the kid. He’s just a baby! He’s so scared! Oh that poor boy, let him complete just one pass. Be nice! At this point, I’ve switched alliances to Texas. Then, the guys covering the game start talking about how Greg McElroy (Alabama’s QB) hasn’t lost a game since middle school. My heartstrings are tugged in the other direction, and I start thinking about how sad it would be for his first loss in years to be in the National Championship game…and before I know it, I’m torn.

This whole series of events got me reflecting on myself as a sports fan. Do I watch the games for the games, or for the stories? Am I listening to the game analysis for player stats, or to hear the sappy tale told during free throws of a kid growing up in the projects relying on basketball to keep him from joining some gang and getting killed on the street? I’m leaning towards the latter.

I saw “The Blind Side” and am suddenly a Ravens fan, I didn’t know what the Tour de France was until Lance Armstrong lost a testicle, and every single time an unranked team goes up against a number one seed, I’m cheering for the underdog. I’ve turned watching sporting events into my own personal episode of “The Real Word”, keeping my ears tuned into sportscasters, just waiting for some way I can make a personal attachment to the athletes/characters. But is this because I’m a chick, or am I just a big softie? Are sports reporters trying to pull in female fans by playing up the emotional tales of athletes? I called my mother for a second opinion.

“I’ve never read a statistic in the sports section, I always just skim through until I find the stories about the players. Sometimes they’re just so cute!”

And there you have it.