Takin' a T/O with BT: Ten Ways to Talk Sports at the Prom

Well, as April turns into May, and spring turns into summer, there may be a buzz around your local high school.

Not only is it the magical time where only the desperate to pass or the desperate to leave it all behind are the only ones attending school, but the signal that your high school career is over—the Prom—is just around the corner.

Some have them in May, some in June. Some on weekends, some on weekdays. For some, the Prom is “the most magical night of their lives,” while for others it’s a night of failed expectations and disappointment. And some, well, some don’t even remember it for one reason or another.

But what happens if you’re a sports fan? Maybe a big game for your team is happening tonight and you have to miss it. Or maybe you just can’t go an entire night without talking sports.

Well, if you’re really that desperate guys, then here we go: Ten ways to talk sports at the prom.

Side note: I would write one for the female readers, but I’ve honestly never witnessed a girl get bored before or during the prom. Sure, they’ll bad-mouth it after, but girls are in the teenage years’ equivalent to “wedding mode” when it’s Prom time. That’s not to say that girls aren’t sports fans, or can’t talk sports at the prom, just that the guys at the prom will get bored more easily and will need something to occupy their time.

Before we do this, a little background on why this article came to be: Ladies, you can thank your sixty different magazines featuring 781 different ways to prepare yourselves for the prom. As much as you think that bringing up sports is unnecessary, we think you having 600 different hair styles, 70 different options for nail patterns, and 55 different choices of shoes for the prom is unnecessary.

In other words, you only have yourselves to blame.

1. Don’t sit with all girls.

This is probably the biggest mistake you can make—not just from a “talking sports” stand point. Seriously, you should thank me for telling you this. You’re going to be sitting with your date's friends if you end up sitting with all girls.

Topics girls talk about at prom include: hair, makeup, nails, memories, and lots and lots of photos.

Whether you want to talk about sports, or you just want to talk, period, make sure that there’s at least one other guy at the table.

Besides, when the girls all throw their cameras at you and the other males to take pictures of the table, you can mutter inappropriate things about your dates’ friends to each other.

Example:

Date: “Make sure to get us all in the picture!”

Your buddy (muttering just to you): “Whoops! Looks like I just cropped her best friend who ruined her birthday surprise out of the shot! Darn…”

As I said, good times.

2. Keep the conversation current.

If you’re able to avoid the Table of Estrogen scenario, then your next step is to always keep the conversation current.

Now at first, this kind of seems obvious, but look at it this way: By keeping the talk current, you’re involving more people (like the casual sports fan, or the guy in your graduating class that claims to be a Pens fan even though the only thing Penguins he’s ever worn is a 2008 RBK Edge Sidney Crosby jersey).

If you and one of your buddies decide to go off on a “Who’s better: Wayne Gretzky, Bobby Orr, or Gordie Howe?” argument, that takes out at least half of the potential talkers. From there, people not learned in the glory years of hockey may become outmatched and leave you two to yell it out.

What’s more is that if your date sees that it’s just you and your buddy talking, she’ll either:

a) Know that something is up

or

b) Be so embarrassed that you’ve been able to drive away so many people that she’ll go and seek out the captain of the football team for a dance.

Keep it current and you won’t be stuck watching SportsCenter at night's end—that is, unless you want to. That’s almost too desperate—even for me

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