Sports Romance – Jolene Navarro

The Unsolicited Opinions of Two Romance Authors

I love a good sports romance. Heroes and Heroines that overcome the odds. Determined. Intense. Sometimes the life of the party and confident on the outside but struggling deep inside. Band of Brothers (or sisters) Found family. The conflicts can be rich and deep. Are they good enough? Are they lost in the image of who the world had told them they are?

Sports can change the way we look at the world…good and bad.

By sell numbers, I am not the only one. They are a popular romance trope. Even if you look at real sports heroes we love the inspirational stories.

There are so many reasons to love sports romance. Some of my favorites are:

Susan Elizabeth Phillips – Football https://susanelizabethphillips.com/chicago-stars-series/

Sarina Bowen Hockey https://sarinabowen.com/brooklyn-bruisers

Amy Daws Soccer in the UK (so they call it football) The Harris Brothers Series https://amydawsauthor.com/

Here are a few we spoke about in our latest podcast. Click on the link below to hear our unsolicited opinions.

Just the number 42 means so much to so many people. Jackie Robinson was more than a sports hero.

J.J. Watt won the 2017 Walter Peyton Man of the Year Award for his charitable work. He is famous for his relief during and after Hurricane Harvey but his charitable contributions have been numerous. He assists schools with after-school programs in an effort to provide activities and sports in a safe manner. In 2018 after a shooting at Santa Fe High School left ten people dead, Watt offered to pay for the funeral expenses.

But we loved the former Houston Texan defensive end even more when he was deeply offended by a local headline about his fiancee, professional soccer star Kealia Ohai. On a story about her trade to a new team, they didn’t even mention her name, instead calling her JJ Watt’s wife. He called them out on Twitter for that “trash headline” and said “they should be better than this.”

My favorite sports duo is Kerri Walsh Jennings and Misty May-Treanor. They are the most winning sand volleyball team. Three gold medals in the Olympics is just the tip of the iceberg. Perhaps most remarkably of all, the US pair lost just one set during that extraordinarily golden period. The list goes on and on, with May-Treanor and Walsh Jennings taking home three successive world championship titles (2003-2007), picking up five AVP Team of the Year crowns (2003-2007) and once going an outstanding 112 matches and 19 tournaments without defeat.

Our local favorite is Patty Mills. Mills was born and raised in Canberra Australia and is of Torres Strait Islander and Aboriginal Australian descent. In 2007, he became only the third Indigenous basketball player to play for Australia’s national team. The second was his uncle thirty years before. He is a vocal advocate for social justice.

Here is a Youtube link to our podcast, but you can find in on Apple podcast and Google Play