Autism and sport

One of my big regrets in adulthood is I never kept up with sports. I would probably be much fitter now! I used to go to the gym, but weight training damaged my shoulder because I was unsupervised...

According to a lot of what I'm reading lately, autistic people supposedly aren't supposed to be good on the sports field. When I was at primary school, I was certainly bad at sport and uncoordinated. Except I was an okay long distance runner, often coming in at second, third, fourth position etc. By secondary school age, I  was more competent, so much so that I was repeatedly selected for school teams. I wasn't the best maybe, but i was solid, and in one of our school magazines I was name checked as a consistently good and committed rugby player. If it hadn't had been for an infected foot, I would have been given try outs for a regional youth team. Who knows? Maybe I would have been selected...

I know this sounds like I'm boasting, but I'm not. I'm just trying to prove how wrong some stereotypes can be.

I suspect there are plenty of autistic people on the sports field. Cricket particularly. It was never my thing, but a lot of cricket fans are into all the number crunching and stats (check out Wisden's Almanac to see what I mean). Some football fans also show signs of it, but being a football fan is socially acceptable. It is probably easier to hide behind that than an interest in stamps or star gazing. I never got into football myself, but I see many fans who are very, very focussed on the game to the exclusion of nearly all else.

I certainly got really obsessed with rugby in my teens. Not only with playing but watching it. I still retain a love of it to this day, but less obsessively! I think it was partly because I enjoyed it, and also because it got me in socially with the other boys at school, and integrated me.