Are you a true sporting tragic? Take the test and find out

If you’re reading this, you love sport. But are you a true tragic? The Roar is for the sports purist who respects every nuance of most every game. But a purist is not necessarily a tragic.

If you’re reading this in the dim light of a plasma TV in the garage at your Nan’s house, your “Bring Back the Biff” t-shirt buried beneath a mound of pistachio nut shells, and the floor littered with disembowelled chocolate bunnies that your mum came in and quietly placed between your tracky-panted legs sometime during the Knights-Canberra game Sunday arvo, then you do NOT need to read on.

You qualify, you are a tragic.

Now get up and go for a walk in the sunshine. The rest of you, please take a short test.

Ever opened your sister’s copy of Cosmo and taken the relationship test? Or opened your Dad’s copy of Reader’s Digest and filled out the questionnaire entitled, “Am I getting enough fibre?”

Well, what follows is just like that.

If you can honestly answer yes to more than ten of the following questions, you are a bona fide, card-carrying, legitimate “Sports Tragic”.

Leave nothing in the tank. Give it 110 per cent. Your time starts now:

* I can identify more than one of the teams from the now defunct Australian Baseball League.
* I own some ABL merchandise.
* I used to be a mascot.
* I once watched all four quarters of the 36ers playing the Blaze (and I am not from Gold Coast or Adelaide)
* I owned an NBL franchised.
* I’ve told anyone who’ll listen that Fat Elvis is the finest mascot in Australian sporting history (look it up).
* I once blew up when I saw the Prime Minister’s XI cricket side named and the “best young talent in Australia” wasn’t there, but some “washed up mug” was.
* I’ve wanted to be Prime Minister purely so I could pick my own XI.
* I think Boonie should be PM.
* I can readily recall who had the most kicks in two of the AFL matches from the weekend.
* I can describe each one of those kicks at length…while watching another game, and reading this article, and listening to the radio.
* I’ve written it all in this scrapbook, it is book seven of volume 23.
* I have missed a milestone in a family member’s life because it clashed with a significant sports event. For example; “Sorry Uncle Bill, I won’t be attending your wedding as it coincides with qualifying for the Bathurst 1000.”
* I have not seen a family member since Foxsports 3 started.
* The Melbourne Rebels are the only family I’ll ever need.
* I pay for Setanta Sports.
* I know what Setanta Sports is.
* I have rung Ray Hadley or Rex Hunt.
* I can imitate Ray Warren or Dennis Commetti.
* I changed my name by deed poll to Richie Benaud.
* I have ever referred to 20/20 cricket as “hit and giggle” and prefer to clear my calendar for Test Matches.
* I have watched more than one full session in a Bangladesh v New Zealand Test match.
* I can name more than three players from either of those sides off the top of my head.
* I applied for softball tickets at the Sydney Olympics and Badminton seats at the Commonwealth Games.
* I got them.
* I went, got drunk and screamed abuse at the officials telling them they knew nothing about the game.
* I know the nickname of the Australian Netball team.
* I know the nickname of the Australian Gridiron team.
* And the name they were known by prior to 1999, and the one they had in 1997.
* I have a favourite player in every sport.
* I have asked for an autograph.
* I have sent Warney a tweet.
* I was pretending to be Liz Hurley at the time.

When I saw this was question 34, my first reaction was not: “Thank God this is almost finished” or “Why would a quiz have 34 questions?” but “Hakeem Olajuwan”.

So how did you do? Did you make the grade?

If you’ve come this far and you aren’t yet a sporting tragic, there are two more ways to qualify. If you’ve read this article and thought “well, I’ve never done that but if he’d asked me BLANK, I’d have had to admit it,” add them below and you’re on the team.

If you’ve searched the answer to any of the questions above, because you just HAD to know, you’re on the team. If fact, if you are still reading, you are a bloody tragic. C’mon, you’re on the team.