Wednesday, June 27th, 2007...10:52 pm

101 Things Every Fan Must Experience Before They Die

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Back in my formulative college days I questioned just about everything about my life that there was to question…except sports. I have an innate love/passion for sports and that’s just the way it is. If my future wife doesn’t get this she probably won’t be my future wife. College basketball makes me happy, period.

ESPN Page 2 had a great article about the The 101 Things Every Fan Must Experience Before They Die, It was written by Jim Caple who is fast becoming my favorite ESPN writer. I still enjoy and appreciate the Sports Guy but I’m reaching my tipping point for stream of consciousness articles that tie together obscure references from Bebe’s Kids, Timmy the super old dude from Road Rules challenge, and Cecilio Guante.

Anyways, back to these 101 sports experiences. I’m pretty sure that the more of these events I attend, the happier and more satisfying this life of mine will be. This is by no means a definitive list and arguing the merits of each event and their order is a great debate that I would pay money to hear Mike and the Mad Dog hash out.

I’ve attended three events in the Top 10. I made a big move last year to hit up the Winter Olympics in Torino, and I’m a pro at the NCAA first round and spring training. Embarrassingly enough, I’ve never made it to a Yankee World Series game although I have been to a handful of Division Series and ALCS games.

Overall, I’ve been to 18 of the 101 events. There are a handful of events I’ve should have attended by now and these include The World Series, Little 500 (must have been to Bloomington ten times), tailgating in the SEC (UAB doesn’t count?), Rucker Park and Midnight Madness. It’s seems like a fluke that I haven’t been to these things.

There are a bunch of events on this list that I am DYING to attend. If you have been to any of these please share your experience. I hope I’m missing out as much as I think I am. These include..

#2 World Cup
#8 Masters
#9 Wimbledon
#10 Tour De France
#14 College World Series
#44 Pebble Beach
#47 Running of the Bulls
#60 Maui Invitational
#73 Field Of Dreams

I plan on knocking off a bunch of events in the next 12 months. These include

#11 Premier League Soccer game
My buddy Leor is moving to London next month and will plan my visit around this.

#29 A game at Rucker Park
Pick a day and I’m down to go uptown.

#62 Midnight Madness
Will go somewhere to see this. Hopefully Alumni Hall.

#63 A Big 5 Game at the Palestra
Wish I could have caught Jameer.

#75 Racing at Saratoga
Going up to the Travers on August 25.

One trip that knocks off two (arguably three) birds with one stone is a Litvack family trip to Tampa next March. We plan on hitting up the first and second round of the NCAA tournament, go to Yankee spring training and play a few round of golf all in one week.

I am also really looking forward to taking my dad to Pebble Beach in the near future. I don’t think he thinks it is worth the money to play there but I’m sure I won’t have to twist his arm too hard if I set it up. Maybe once Sportsvite goes platinum!

I would love to hear some of your experiences and plans. Please leave it as a comment rather than an email to me so that the everybody gets to benefit.

2 Comments

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  • Hillz

    Been to 13 of the 101 listed.

    My personal favorites are 1st round of March Madness (with the littys of course), the US Open Tennis tourney, and MLB Opening day at Camden Yards back when the Orioles were good (which also meant getting to leave middle school for a 1/2 day- as game time was usually 3:05pm in Bmore)!

    Just tremendous energy at all those events, you knew you were somewhere special, at a sold out event where you were sure to be entertained.

    The events I plan to attend in the not too distant future are the World Cup (2010 in South Africa, just hope i come back alive), Wimbledon (dad & i have talked about for yrs– Australian would be fun also), Premiere Soccer League (new Wembley stadium + Chelsea and Liverpool + Pubbbs would be a sweeeet trip), NBA Finals (will the Knicks make it before you call me Grandpa?!), Tailgate SEC (hopefully my son won’t be a student down there though), Maui Invitational (reason for a 2nd honeymoon!!), Daytona or Indy 500 (gotta fig out why all these people love this sport), Running of the Bulls (just to get back to Spain- best place on earth), and Rucker Park (is that safe??)

    If I had to add a #102 it would be an event in Jamaica– is there some sort of World Championship Red Stripe Drinkoff or a Kingston Smokeoff on the schedule?

  • Lisa

    I’m pretty sure seeing the Stanley Cup presented in person would have to be the best event on the list – and being on the ice with some NBC face time with Teemu makes it even better!