On the surface, they appear to be the ultimate contests of strength and will. Football, baseball, soccer, basketball, heck, even golf all look like a manly-man’s unrivaled entertainment. They’re sweat-filled fights of rage, blood, sweat and yes, tears. What self-respecting man would not watch two teams battle it out on any playing field?

To be versed in athletics — pro, collegiate or amateur — seems to take years of tutelage. I’m amazed at the number of trivial facts that we sports-loving people can vomit up as we sit elbow-to-elbow chewing peanuts and gulping down beers at sports bars. It’s sick really. I mean, I can study test material for weeks and not be able to keep the facts all straightened out. A week after some baseball game, I can tell you the stupidest, most pointless information that will do neither you, nor I, any good whatsoever. Heck, I can probably tell you stats from my high school days, and that was nearly a decade ago!

Watching the latest Paris and Nicole show the other night, it hit me. Yes, I’d heard it before, but now I’m convinced. Sports are just stupid reality shows for men. The rapper Nas first put the idea in my head a number of years ago when he did a song about sports just being distraction so the war machine can keep operating. As much as I love sports, he just might be right.

I can’t tell you the number of times I’ve complained about US Weekly and other tabloid magazines, but I can tell you it has to be close to 1,000 times. I’m always getting all pissed off, going on some ultra-unnecessary rampage, ripping into the people who write all the crap about Lindsay Lohan or Britney Spears, and then ripping harder into my girlfriend who is always eating the gossip up. Never once during these snobby tirades did I equate following celebrity lives with following sports.

Now, I’m not so sure. It’s the press-created quarterback controversies, and the rivalries that don’t really exist except on print. It’s Kobe Bryant and Mark McGwire. It’s Wilt Chamberlain and Magic Johnson and New York writers calling for A-Rod’s head. It’s all a bunch of nonsense.

Joe Weis’ Sociology of Sport class taught many of you the origins of these games, mainly warfare and I forget the rest — travel maybe — anyhow, he related the story of the Romans. He talked all about how the coliseum and the killing off of animal species, criminals and slaves and the gladiator battles were used to keep the population in check while the ruling class did whatever they pleased.

Are we still just screaming idiots in a huge waste of space, yelling at inconsequential events while secret strings are pulled behind our backs? It’s a tough question that most sports fans would just bypass for the next sports story. Those same fans would probably watch 24-hour highlights rather than be informed about what goes on in our world. But I trust that many a sports fan is of the intelligent variety, so again, I ask, why?

Why do we so love to be distracted from the life we are actually living? We love to live vicariously through LeBron James. We love to hate Barry Bonds like he’s the one who orchestrated the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks. Sadly, it seems that people are more passionate about hating him than feeding the poor, or helping educate our youth. Even more sadly, the media would have you think that it’s more important to catch Bonds on the juice than to catch who actually did pull off that fateful attack on our own soil.

Really, it all makes me wonder, are they simply sports? Is life and all that goes into it– — the joy, the sadness, the agony, the work, the relaxation, the rewards — is it all just a game? If so, I’d like to be a winner. I’d like to come out on top, I’d like to “step-up” and do all the other sports clichés we write constantly, but the older I get, the more I realize, if someone is losing, we all are.

Reach columnist Sam Cameron at sports@thedaily.washington.edu.