by Carrie Brownstein

Deep down, I feel like there's some fundamental and philosophical disagreement between sports and music. Is it that we're still caught up in the jocks vs. weirdos mentality from high school? Were the freaks and geeks the only ones with good taste in bands? Music was certainly a form of salvation, expression and identity for those of us on the fringes or excluded from the popular circles. And it felt like the jocks, cheerleaders and frat boys caught on late, co-opting the good tunes for asinine purposes like pumping themselves and the crowd up for games or for parties.

Yet at the same time, I was raised on sports and athleticism. Growing up in the Pacific Northwest, I played soccer along with just about every other girl I knew; I hiked, bicycled, camped and made the varsity tennis team year after year. My father had graduated from Duke, and I knew all about Coach K and the Blue Devils (and how the Tar Heels were the enemy), and we went to Mariners games and followed Husky and Seahawk football. Sports fandom wasn't divided along gender lines or friend groups; it fit in seamlessly with dolls, Cabbage Patch Kids and our love of Duran Duran.

Then, in high school, I quit the tennis team my junior year, feeling like I couldn't combine my newfound love of punk rock and arthouse films with white Izod shirts and Adidas tennis shoes. That makes sense for a 15-year-old: to eschew one identity in lieu of another, to immerse oneself in the furthermost, most radicalized and strident version of a movement — in my case punk rock — in order to feel like I was a part of something and could be easily identified as such. But eventually, we crawl out of those corners because they're too constricting, searching for a more balanced wholeness in the center, sometimes even reverting back to our former selves or trying out new spaces and identities altogether.

But there's something about organized and professional sports that seems to irk or feel like a contradiction to certain people. In my own experiences as a writer and musician, my appreciation of sports often invokes expressions of surprise or annoyance. I think I got a few eye rolls when I wrote about Tom Petty's performance at the Super Bowl a few years back. My favorite comment on the piece was, "Wow, you lost me here... Super Bowl & Tom Petty. Keepin' it 'real' with NPR..."

But there are a lot of musicians and music fans — both male and female and across all genres — who love sports teams or specific players. In fact, your favorite musician is probably checking his or her fantasy baseball or basketball stats right now.

So why is there a perceived disconnect between sport and art? Is it a high- and low-culture divide? Is it leftover bitterness? Are certain sports less egregious than others? Or are sports just terrible?

You know, I really just wanted to say: Go Blazers!

Check out this Blazers rap!