Make Him Think You Know Sports: 7 Things That’ll Impress Him

In the never-ending quest to brag to your friends about how many boys totally want to get with you, here are some sure-fire ways to give you that extra edge over the competition:

1. Join a fantasy football league – with other girls:

Every so often, a high school or collegiate fantasy football league will feature one female player. Impressive on the surface, yes – but if surfaces were the only things that mattered, our beloved Jack Dawson would likely be out of work.

When a girl joins an otherwise all-male fantasy football league, there is a high probability that the girl in question has joined only to fulfill her boyfriend’s dream girl prophecy. Her knowledge is thus perfunctory and often lends itself to the boyfriend taking over her team by Week 5. Remove the boy toy, however, and we’re having an entirely different conversation.

An all-girl football league can only mean two things. One, that the participants actually know a thing or two about football; or two, that they are performing the greatest facade of all time, and should be duly commended for wasting an incredible amount of time just to impress a bunch of wing-eating clowns.

2. Get an obscure jersey:

Derek Jeter, Kobe Bryant and Tim Tebow jerseys are just about as common as the Burnett’s Vodka collection is in freshmen dorms. For girls, wearing the jersey of a popular player often indicates that it’s a Sunday Funday, and shit, I need to wear something to look in costume. Either that, or the name on the back was on the cover of People last week, and OMG what I would do to him…

While it appears that collegiate males are engaged in some sort of eternal death match to sport the most outdated jersey of all time (I got Mo Vaughn on the Mets, top THAT people), a female wearing a Tyrone Wheatley jersey will work its magic in mysterious ways. It will also initiate the Axe effect, but for females.

3. Lose Your March Madness Bracket

Just as all males are soulless animals who don’t even have enough human compassion to appreciate how meaningful Justin Long’s performance in He’s Just Not That Into You really is, all females who win March Madness brackets know absolutely nothing about sports. Their victories are almost always attributed to strange color schemes, the shopping scene in certain cities, or the end all be all, how good one’s sorority rep is at a particular campus. Girls, do yourself a favor and lose your March Madness brackets. Winning can only cast doubt.

4. Have an opinion about Skip Bayless

In the male collegiate universe (the one where dirty dishes and half-empty Natural Light cans pile up in the sink like a game of Jenga), ESPN is often on for more hours than class is attended. This means that sports programming is watched more than actual sports, which also means that opinions about sportscasters are inevitably formed.

ESPN First Take’s Skip Bayless, who seems just as much in it for the blogosphere backlash as he does the actual sports commentary, is just one those guys that you have no choice but to converse animatedly about. Form a strong opinion on Skip Bayless, and you’ll likely find yourself at a nice Italian restaurant a few days later. He’ll probably even treat you to a bottle of wine that neither of you can pronounce.

5. Read Grantland

Bill Simmon’s Sports/Pop-Culture site,in addition to being one of the better inventions of the past millennium or so, is a surefire way to get a guy to raise his eyebrows and respond in a way that reveals his unintended vulnerability – and at the same time capture the upper hand for the rest of the night and/or relationship. It is also the only place in the world that you could read an article about sports, but also read up on what happened last night during Parks and Recreation.

A Simmons mailbag will not only inform you of the latest and greatest sports issues, but will also enlighten you as to movies you need to see, songs you need to listen to and general hilarity from readers who, well, nobody knows where they come from. Overall, a better call than investing in a band right before they appear on an Apple commercial.

6. Have the right  opinion on Manning/Luck

You either say the Colts are a terrible franchise that has no loyalty and/or human compassion (if you think he wants a stable, long-term relationship), or that they should get rid of the aging has-been and grab the it-item while it’s hot (if you want to sneak out the next morning while he’s still sleeping, smile on the way back from your walk of shame like some Emma Stone-esque victory montage and rack up another one for Team “I’m living my life on my own terms, don’t you dare mess with me. Biotch.”)

7. Throw Out Football Formations in Casual Conversation

The best way to be awesome in any life situation is to take something completely unrelated and make it totally related. We’ll make this one easy:

7a. When there’s too many people trying to get drinks the bar: “They really can’t handle this blitzing scheme … guess they figured it’d be a prevent defense kind of night. I’d fire their O-coordinator right away. No emphasis on protection, just inexecusable.”

7b. When trying to get a boy to take one more shot so he makes a questionable decision afterwards:“Bases loaded, two outs, bottom on the ninth. Tim Wakefield’s throwing you a knuckleball; let’s make it count.”

7c. When looking for a place to sit at your favorite coffee shop, frustrated at the fact that the place never has anywhere to sit because people spend like 50 hours there. “People here really gotta learn the West Coast Offense.”