A significant event happened in my life this past week that seems to have struck a chord with some of those close to me, but it's barely even registered with me, even though it was constantly brought to my attention.

Yup, I turned 30.

Now I'm not looking for any sympathy here, for a couple of reasons. First, I realize most of the people reading this are my elders, and they'd give anything to be 30 again. And that's fine. I rarely feel old, though I did come across a kid this summer, a high school senior whom I hadn't seen since I was his camp counselor when he was 6. Naturally, he didn't remember me.

The second reason is that, in many ways, I'm 30 going on 22. And for that I have sports to thank. Or blame.

I grew up in a family in which sports played a significant role. My father is a coach. My grandfather was a pretty good baseball player and golfer in different stages of his life. My grandparents are fans. My sister was a good high school basketball player.

I was the one with minimal athletic prowess. Why do you think I turned to sports writing? No elite young athletes quit their sports to join the sports media. My unconditional love for sports has kept me younger than my years mentally, to some degree physically, and occasionally emotionally.

Let's be honest — becoming overwhelmingly excited for a baseball playoff game, tennis match, Super Bowl, etc., is not exactly the typical adult thing to do. When the Red Sox are in the playoffs (do not insert

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joke here), my life revolved around the games. Everything else was second, and a very distant second at that.

I have said before that if I were forced to work the night of a Red Sox World Series Game 7, I'd quit the job. Maybe that's all talk, but the fact that I said it speaks volumes. And not in a particularly good way.

But if you can't get genuinely excited about something, that means you're losing some of that inner youth. Sports helps many of us maintain that.

Physically, sports has helped keep me pretty healthy. I love to play tennis, occasionally shoot hoops, etc., and to do that remotely well, I need to exercise. By no means am I a physical specimen, but staying active means I don't need a nap after climbing a few flights of stairs.

And emotionally? Well, this isn't an area I'm always proud of. A few years back, after Manny Ramirez was robbed of a would-be game-winning homer against Oakland, I took out my frustrations on my apartment bedroom door, the handle of which busted a hole in the wall. Thank the lord for Spackle.

So while my high school and college days are undeniably in my rear-view mirror, being a 30-year-old doesn't really faze me, in part because I feel even younger than I am. That's what makes sports so great.

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(Jeers) To Bengals receiver T.J. Houshmandzadeh, who said this after the Patriots pounded his team last Sunday: "They knew they couldn't stop us, but you need the team as a whole to succeed. There aren't any (defensive backs) on that team that can cover us. That's why they played the coverages they did."

This is what Houshmandzadeh should have said: "The best team in football for most of the last five years beat the tar out of us. We're not the first victim, we won't be the last, but we need to work harder to make sure we're ready for similar challenges in the future."

Nobody likes a whiner, and when your team scores 13 points, you don't claim the opponent knew it couldn't stop you.

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(Cheers) To the Subway commercials featuring Jon Lovitz. While I do find Lovitz very funny and actually like some of the ads, I'm most pleased that we don't see that Jared Fogle guy anymore. He is like Paris Hilton — famous for virtually no reason. Fogle is famous for once being fat and then becoming less fat. Hilton is famous for having money she didn't earn and being one of the most intolerable human beings on the planet.

Contact Chris Casavant at c.casavant@yahoo.com