Chris and sports

Sports is a term that refers to competitive games involving intense physical activity that may be important to a culture. Some activities which don't quite fit that definition, such as Esports, are also often considered sports. Upon first glance, one may assume that Chris has never even thought about throwing a ball or running a mile, but that would be wrong. In fact, Chris has had several interactions with sports throughout his life. For most people, sports provide an opportunity to push yourself beyond what you thought possible or to find a team that you believe in. For Chris, though, sports amount to little more than a tool to solicit respect.

Managerial Career

Chris in his glory days.

No doubt Chris's most famous role in the sports world was as the "Manager/Water Boy" of the Manchester High School varsity basketball team. As the names imply, the role of a water boy and a manager are two very different things, and while a student manager of a sports team may very well sometimes perform simple services for the team such as providing water, it is more likely Chris was simply given the title as a gesture. While there are not many details known about his time in this role, he did share this position with fellow student Joseph Herring who made enough of an impression on Chris to appear in Sonichu #7. Chris only served as manager for a single season. Whether he lost interest or was denied a second season his sophomore year is anyone's guess.

Chris, the Athlete

While Chris never formally played any sports for an organized team, he has plenty of experience with casual group and solo play. Chris has bragged several times about his incredible athletic prowess. On his first Match.com profile, Chris boasts that he has played many popular sports and would attempt to defend his masculinity by stating the same in Kacey Call 9. It has also been claimed by Sonichu himself that Chris's counterpart in C-197 is very talented at certain sports. In short, Chris's feats on the sporting fields are something he is very willing to brag about, whether they warrant it or not.

Basketball

Chris is not limited to the sidelines of the basketball court. During his time in jail, Chris reported in a letter that he would sometimes shoot some hoops with Bionic the Hedgehog on Central Virginia Regional Jail's half-court. Tragically, in a letter to Eels and the Eggman, Chris would lament being banned from the rec room, cutting his basketball career short before the NBA had the chance to notice him.

Football

In Chris's home country of the United States, football is a game that revolves around tackles and touchdowns. In most other parts of the world, football is what Chris and his fellow Americans would call soccer. Chris has history with both variations of the sport. In his video A few kicks, Chris plays around with a soccer ball as Toucher le ciel plays louder than he speaks. Chris's ownership of a soccer ball implies an interest in playing soccer, but the lack of any feats more impressive than kicking the ball kind of far makes it seem that this is another instance of Chris taking a mild interest in something, making a video about it, and leaving it be. In a twist that is part unsurprising and part extremely surprising, Chris has more experience with American football. In his emails with Jackie, Chris confirms that while he was never the most interested in it, Chris would play football during PE class. According to Chris, the class would be split between boys and girls. Presumably, they would each be further divided into two teams that would then play against each other. Chris didn't enjoy the levels of violence displayed by the JERKS, and was eventually placed to play among the girls by "special request." Although his time spent with either variety of football is to our knowledge quite short, Chris directly references both among the sports he plays on his first Match.com profile and is quick to bring them up when Kacey tells him volleyball is not a very masculine activity. It seems that for Chris, simply having played before is enough to call himself a player if it helps his love quest.

Running

Like football, running is a sport that takes many forms. Since Chris's lifelong hero and his prized creation are both runners, one could imagine that Chris has a certain level of appreciation for running sports as well. In his famous December 2009 video Sonichu's Edge, Chris records himself "jogging" around downtown Charlottesville. In his video, Chris shows just how unfamiliar with running he truly is (for example, mispronouncing "parkour" as "parkay" and thinking parkour is in any way related to distance running). During his run, Chris seemingly takes many breaks during cuts in the video. Given Chris's shape, many would consider this excusable. What makes this notable is that at the beginning of the video, Chris states a belief that all runners do this. Jogging was a topic discussed by Chris and Kacey quite often in their calls earlier that same year. The troll behind Kacey acted quite bothered with Chris's lacking in ability, criticizing him for only being able to jog for 3 minutes time in Kacey Call 19. In Kacey Call 21, Chris claims that he has upped his time jogging to 5 minutes. Still unimpressed, Kacey suggests that Chris ought to record himself running so that she could tell him how to improve. Chris makes the excuse that it would be difficult to film himself jogging due to the way he swings his arms. Kacey replies that when jogging, one is supposed to keep their arms beside them. Some video game characters will swing their arms stretched out beside them while running, so it is possible that Chris picked up the habit from them. Regardless, when Kacey suggests that Chris should at least set the camera in a stationary position and jog in front of it, Chris says that he will "think about it" and leaves it at that.

Volleyball

One of the sports that Chris is supposedly so skilled at in our sister dimension is volleyball. This was claimed post-transition, which makes one wonder if Chris saying this was influenced by an aforementioned comment made by Kacey about volleyball being "really a girl sport" after Chris described playing it in high school as a "boy thing", however, that is just speculation and cannot be confirmed.

Other

When Chris lists sports he's played, baseball is usually among them. Despite this, no stories of Chris playing baseball seem to exist. However on an OKCupid profile, Chris claims that "baseball sucks." A similar situation exists regarding tennis, where we know that Chris took a class on the game in college, but that is all. As for E-Sports, Chris has only gotten into playing competitive games online relatively recently as of the Revelations Saga, with Tetris 99 being a favorite since just before the Jail Saga. He also took ice skating classes in both college and high school, and would occasionally swim and weightlift at YMCA.

Chris, the Sports Fan

Like all fandoms, being a sports fan can be an important part of someone's identity. Many fans will attempt to follow their team as they travel large distances to play against other teams, and rivalries between teams will often extend to their fans. While it would be very entertaining to watch Chris give a Chop Chop Master Onion's Rap Showdown-esque rant about how the University of Virginia Cavaliers were robbed of an important win by the referees, Chris is not as passionate as these aforementioned fans about many things other than vidya and (formerly) hanky panky. That said, Chris has expressed interest in consuming sports related-media throughout the years.

Attending Live Sports

As a waterboy in high school, Chris would have had the opportunity to see plenty of action on the basketball court. In fact, given Chris's work ethic, one may assume that Chris would spend more time watching the game than performing his actual duties. While that is not outside the realm of possibility, if he did, he never saw anything worth remembering to him, as in Mailbag 28 he was asked in a letter if he had any basketball stories among other questions. His response is to ignore this part of the letter. Regardless, during in a message on The Place from October 2020, Chris would cite his time as manager as an exception to the rule of him not being "really big into watching sports."

In May 2010 Chris won 4 tickets to Extreme Action Sports, a motorsports event held in the John Paul Jones Arena. He attempted to find 3 people to attend with him, however he would say in the Greene County Conspiracy video that none of his friends were able. While many would consider this happening to be reason to simply stay home, Chris would attend anyway, sitting next to a "lovey-dovey couple" who he supposedly tried to be friendly towards. Chris does not say whether he enjoyed the event itself to any degree, his video about the subject makes it clear that being there alone was quite disappointing.

Watching Sports on TV

Chris has referenced watching football on TV a number of times. In October 2011, Chris listed a Panasonic 32-inch color television on Craigslist, and in the description noted that it "defined SUPER BOWL SUNDAY, as well as Thanksgiving Football Watching". It may be worth noting that Bob's alma mater, Auburn University traditionally plays football against its main rival, the University of Alabama, around Thanksgiving. In fact, based on later comments, it may be inferred that all this football watching Chris says he has done was Bob trying to introduce him to the sport in one of his many attempts to get Chris into his myriad hobbies and interests. In a The Place Chat from October 2020, Chris says that he is not particularly interested in watching sports when asked if he keeps up with college football. Ironically enough, this question was prompted when Chris brought up that at-the-time head football coach for the aforementioned University of Alabama, Nick Saban had been diagnosed with Covid 19. A similar sentiment would be shared in a somewhat confusing Twitter post from 7 February 2021 about Super Bowl LV, Chris, roleplaying as Sonichu claims that Chris is not much into football, or sports in general. Sonichu, however, is implied to enjoy football, and perhaps even plays football himself.

Hey, y’all. Just a quick note, since it is #SuperBowl2021 today: Chris is not into watching football and sports games that much, so Super Bowl is not a big thing with her; not gonna be watching it. Me, however, we actually play and practice our sports and activities back home.⚡️ [GIF of Charlie Brown trying to kick a football with text saying "ARE YOU READY FOR SOME FOOTBALL?"]

Whether this means that Chris would be watching the Super Bowl as part of his Sonichu roleplay, that Sonichu would watch it if not for supposedly being in the real world inside Chris's body, or anything else is not exactly clear.

In November 2023 livestream, also while Chris was roleplaying but this time as Jesus Christ, he was asked to bless the Green Bay Packers so that they make it to and win Super Bowl LVIII. Chris responds to this request saying that divine forces have pre-ordained that the winning team would be the one that "earned it." This could be taken as Chris hiding a lack of interest in the NFL, considering that if Chris had a favorite team then one may expect him to give some sort of reason why they must win in order for the merge to be completed successfully, but that is mere speculation. On a related note, though, Chris never outright denies interest, and even confirms that the higher powers of his lore have some sort of concern for the outcome of the league's season.

Consuming Sports Merchandise

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Some of the video games Chris owns are sports-based. While it is understood that Chris will sometimes buy games and never play them, we do know that Chris was apparently relatively devoted to one of these sports titles. Rusty's Real Deal Baseball was a freemium game available on the Nintendo 3DS eShop. In this game, the player is able to purchase minigames themed around baseball for real money. However, the player is also able to use items won from previous minigames to haggle with the titular character, an anthropomorphic dog named Rusty (who Chris believed to be a rabbit, apparently mistaking him for a character from another game), and buy these minigames from him for a lower price. In fact, the game strongly encourages the player to do this. Many people assumed Chris would not want to go through the effort of doing business with Rusty, and instead buy everything for the maximum amount of real world money. This led to a rumor that Chris may have been the first person to encounter Pappy Van Poodle, a character who would show up and give Rusty the items that the player was supposed to give him so that the story can progress. In May of 2019, Chris would be interviewed by YouTuber Nick Robinson for this reason. This rumor would turn out to be false, as Chris did in fact negotiate with Rusty for the lower prices. Regardless, it is still known from the Nintendo Employee Leak that Chris bought all of the minigames, meaning he poured at least 16 dollars into the game to buy 9 minigames. If Chris paid this minimum price, then that means he got far enough in the various minigames to earn the items required to obtain the lower prices.

In Chris's infamous Lego Manchester High School video, two of the minifigure characters shown attending the school are the official Red Cheerleader and Blue Cheerleader. When the first version of the custom build was severely damaged in the house fire, it can be assumed that these two characters were among the parts of the set that were completely destroyed, as both figures were included in a photo album on Chris's Facebook profile called "minifigs need/want". Also on this list was another sports-themed character, the Roller Derby Girl. The two cheerleaders are the only figures that feel in place in Chris's original Manchester High, as we never see any football or basketball players. However, it is known that the second iteration of the build was much more expansive, so it may be that more sports-based figures such as the Football Player or some of the various NBA minifigures are included. If so, they are not shown in Chris's photos of the rebuild on his ReBrick profile. He would later upload images of the various staff members of the high school, which do include a man named Duke Herring, who looks similar to a stereotypical coach.

In pictures of Chris's room from August 2020, it can be seen that Chris owns or owned one of the traditional foam hands sometimes used by spectators at sports games to represent fandom for a team or the belief that the team is "number one" as denoted by the pointer finger pointing up, however, it should be noted that the hand is branded by Doctor Pepper as opposed to any particular sports team. The same photos also reveal Chris owns or owned something resembling a frisbee with the Gatorade logo. This can also be thought of as sports merchandise due to the drink's affiliation with the University of Florida's athletics, however, that is only a technicality.

Sports in Sonichu

Sonichu surfing in Sonichu 8, as depicted by PandaHalo.

The most obvious example of sports playing in Sonichu canon is Bionic the Hedgehog. Chris created 2 origin stories for Bionic, but both involve basketball. The simpler of the stories, found on the CWCkipedia, says that Bionic was lost due to time travel shenanigans. Before returning safely to the present day, Bionic learned his iconic basketball skills, as well as how to talk to women. In the other version, Bionic fell into a portal as a child and ended up in a world full of basketball players, but returned several years later.

According to Chris, Bionic can score over 100 baskets in a single game. Lebron James, the highest scoring player in the NBA, averages 27.1 points per game . Even if Bionic is only shooting 1-point shots, he is vastly outscoring not only one of the greatest basketball players, but even entire teams' worth of players in most cases. Whether this is incredibly impressive or incredibly unrealistic is up for reader interpretation.

Instances of Bionic playing his signature game include the opening of Sonichu 7, in which he, Chris, and Meg-Chan are talking amongst themselves on Manchester High's basketball court. Bionic is shown to be shooting some hoops, although it's unclear if Chris and Meg-chan are meant to be playing with him. On the cover of Sonichu 9, Bionic is shown performing a dunk, which in basketball is generally considered to be an impressive move. Bionic also uses a basketball as a weapon in his very first appearance in Sonichu 6, using it to defeat Reldnahc, and again to distract Giovanni, who was attempting to force Sonichu to make Reldnahc mayor of CWCville.

While Bionic is the main example of an athlete in Sonichu canon, that doesn't mean that we should forget about everyone's favorite Asian stereotype, Punchy Sonichu. While Bionic may have been young when he began his journey to become the greatest basketball player of all time, Punchy was literally born in a martial arts dojo. In Sonichu 3, Episode 10, the eggs containing the Chaotic Combo were launched from the rainbow of Chaos Energy created by the collision of Sonic the Hedgehog and the Pikachu that would soon become Sonichu. Punchy's egg lands inside of Nabe's dojo-shin, where it proceeds to hatch. On the very first day of his life, Punchy wants to battle. A human named Mypoe accepts his challenge and rips off his tail, causing him to evolve then and there, and respond with an uppercut that launched Mypoe through the ceiling and into the sky. Punchy would live at the dojo for some time afterword.

Of course, it must be mentioned that the titular Sonichu is also an athlete. In addition to the obvious running, which he appears to enjoy doing, Sonichu is also shown surfing in Sonichu 8. We get a better look at his sporting life in A Sonichu and Rosechu Christmas. In the short story, we learn that Sonichu likes to run, play catch with a football, engage in digital bowling alongside Robbie (it is not clear if Cera or Christine are invited to join, or how Robbie's gender transition affected this aspect of their relationship). The story also sees Robbie recalling that at some point, Sonichu won a wrestling match.