by Michele Hriciso

Created on: January 22, 2009   Last Updated: January 28, 2009

I have loved sports since I was six years old, when my father took me to my first minor-league hockey game.

Perhaps love is a tame word, though; obsessed would be more like it. I am not at the fantasy-football level of obsession, but I'm close. I absorb team information in a sponge-like manner until my head swells. And nobody better ever criticize my favorite player in my presence. I'm guilty of wearing team shirts and jerseys to church on game days. I even find my team's colors showing up in my non-sports attire.

Yes, I'm one seriously obsessed lady.

My husband is all right with sports but he's far from obsessed. He'll watch a game with me if he's not doing anything else, but if he can otherwise occupy himself he will.

It is very difficult for me to watch a game with him. If he sees something interesting, he has to rewind it so I can see it again. Me, I figure the TV people will show it again if it's important to the course of the game. At some point, I usually have to get up and rip the remote from his hands because it's annoying to have to see plays again; I just want to watch the dang game, already. Leave it alone!

One day I did a status update on Facebook in which I called Florida Gators quarterback Tim Tebow a "stud." My husband replied that he couldn't comment on that, thinking I was commenting on Tebow's physical attractiveness, when I was actually saying he was a great football player. My husband doesn't read up on his teams, so he didn't know that was sportswriter jargon. Silly boy.

My signature on one football site I frequent says, "By the way, I didn't give Rashean Mathis permission to get married." He's my favorite player, and I figure he should consult me before making himself unavailable; after all, I am his biggest fan.

It can be very difficult to talk sports with my husband, since he doesn't share my level of interest. However, I have found that I can be his personal source for sports information if I can get him to settle down and listen.

It's not unusual for us, this inability to be on the same level. I am interested in writing, sports, religion and music; he's interested in hunting, leatherworking, civil war history and gold prospecting.

Over the course of a 15-year marriage, we've learned to negotiate our differences. I feign interest in gold prospecting and tease him about killing Bambi's mom. He sometimes reads what I write and listens to my off-the-wall music, and in exchange I sometimes tolerate country music in the car. He goes to the Jacksonville

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