Mondays with Mike: The wide, wacky, world of sports

Mondays with Mike is back! It’s–about the time I thought I’d get back in the Mondays rhythm, life happened and, well, apologies for the absence.

There’s a backlog of blog ideas, but for today, I’m going to stick with something that maybe has been going on for a while but I’ve just noticed: The proliferation of weird sports.

I kinda thought it had peaked around Covid lockdown when ESPN, desperate for any live content, began broadcasting the American Cornhole League. Now, I prefer calling it bags, but whatever. Anyway, two Cornhole players stood, with surgical masks, side by side and battled it out. I guess I was desperate, too.

Of course, all the major sports have been back for awhile. And that’s plenty—especially football, which is seeming more and more like an all-year thing. But lately I’ve noticed three new sports that one channel or another sees fit to broadcast. One of them is called kick volleyball (also known a Sepak Trakow. Although it’s hard to visualize if you haven’t seen it, it’s exactly what it sounds like: it’s like volleyball except it uses a smaller ball and players don’t use hands, they use feet. Here’s a sample of some highlights from an international match:

I have to say, they pull off some remarkable plays, kind of soccer, volleyball, and acrobatics all in one. There’s also a beach version called footvolley:

Next, we all remember tag, right? You’re “it” until you tag another person, who is then “it.” Little did I ever think as a kid playing tag with neighbor kids that there would one day be a professional tag league. It’s called World Chase Tag and while the whole “tag” thing is the basis, it involves an obstacle course. Once again, you kind of have to see it:

But wait, there’s more! I present to you, the PFC Pillow Fight Championship.

You just can’t make this stuff up.