The smell of buttered popcorn wafts through the air as a line of students forms outside of PNC Arena. It’s an hour before tipoff and the student line continues to grow and wrap around the entirety of the building.
The National Anthem plays and PNC is full and everyone is excited. Winning has become more common this season.
It is a different vibe from last year when we finished last in the ACC conference at 4-16 in the conference and 11-21 overall. You could walk up 15 minutes before tip-off and get a wristband as a student.
This year, we will end the season with a winning record and have a decent chance to make a run in the ACC tournament and NCAA tournament and I couldn’t be more excited.
N.C. State basketball has been a tradition in my family since I can remember. My dad would take me to games when I was a kid and I learned to love the sport. I can’t remember the last time we had such a good season.
While I have been watching basketball my whole life, both college, and NBA, there is an overwhelming amount of backlash from men questioning my intelligence when it comes to the sport.
I instantly have to prove my worthiness to watch and prove my knowledge of the sport by answering 20-questions worth of arbitrary questions about the history of the sport or team. As if it is so crazy to think I could also be interested in watching sports.
“Oh, you’re a fan? Name the starting five of the 2003 team, where they were from, and what car they drove.”
As the self-proclaimed “N.C. State basketball number one fan,” it’s a frustrating narrative to deal with.
The feeling of getting questioned by men I don’t know is belittling and degrading. The automatic assumption that sports are a man’s hobby is offensive.
When I miss calls in the game, I don’t ask the men next to me for fear of judgment or the initial thought that I don’t know what’s happening.
It doesn’t just happen in basketball either; in fact, football is worse.
During this past football season, I was in the stadium and I missed a play on the field. I tapped the guy in front of me on the shoulder and asked him what the call was and he said “oh you don’t need to worry about it. Just cheer, it was good for us.”
I stood there stunned. A simple, “false start” would have sufficed, but he had to dig his heels in and question my intelligence.
For lack of a better word, it’s “mansplaining” and it is completely insulting. It supports the idea that activities, interests, and hobbies are gendered, which is an outdated way of thinking.
So my piece of advice is to watch sports and forget about the inevitable mansplainers.