George Huitker’s A-Z Questionnaire For Determining If You Should Stay At Home With A Jasmine Tea On Match Days
Just complete the following questionnaire before you leave for a sporting event:
a) If your sporting team loses, do you take it personally?
b) If your sporting team loses, do you feel inferior in any way?
c) If your sporting team loses, do you feel responsible?
d) If your sporting team loses, do you feel the need to hit someone or something or take out some act of dirty little revenge with items such as an umbrella?
e) If your sporting team loses, do you look up at the sky, spin around in a circle with clenched fists and have metaphysical debates with divine powers about why you never get things your way?
f) If your sporting team loses, do you feel it’s due to anything but your team’s performance?
g) When you yell at referees or players or coaches is your anger deep-rooted or linked to an unpleasant episode of your childhood?
h) When you yell at referees or players or coaches do you swear or speak in a language, foreign or otherwise, which implies a lot of violence?
i) When you yell at referees or players or coaches are you certain they are primarily responsible for the poor result?
j) Are the officials and the opposition the enemy?
k) Do you feel dirty inside when shaking hands with members of the opposition?
l) Do you feel dirty inside when singing “Three Cheers” at the end of a fixture?
m) Is winning everything and losing absolutely nothing?
n) Is winning the only road to success?
If the answer is “no” to all of these, then go to sport with my blessing. Then try these:
o) When you yell at referees does the thought occur to do a course and officiate yourself?
p) When you yell at players does the thought occur to you that you couldn’t do much better yourself?
q) When you yell at coaches does the thought occur to you that they might love the team as much as you do?
r) When you look up at the sky, spin around in a circle with clenched fists and yell at any divine power about why you never get things your way, has it ever dawned on you that God or whoever may not be all that interested in something as inconsequential as a sporting result?
s) When you brag about sporting success do you feel a little childish?
t) When you are on top of the ladder, do you wonder or remember what it is like to be down at the bottom?
u) When a sportstar behaves like a child on television, do you explain to your kids why s/he is a dickhead?
v) When your kids behave like these silly sportstars on television, do you explain to them they are in danger of becoming a dickhead?
w) Is there too much emphasis on winning?
x) Is there too much money in winning?
y) Do you remember what it’s like to be a kid?
z) Do you love what you do in sport?
If the answer is “yes” to all of these, then go to sport with my blessing.
(Taken from George Huitker's How to Succeed Without Really Winning, Ginninderra Press, 2005)
