Do you ever wonder what classifies a sport as a sport? Why do some hobbies and pastimes make the cut while all those others, which some people say may be a sport, like cheerleading, do not? Is it the number of players involved, the arena it’s held in or the equipment used? Well, I think it’s all three of these and more that ensure the title of it being a sport. Broadly speaking, all sports share certain underlying characteristics. Almost all involve a ball, uniforms, points, judges and the physical and mental rigors of training. Yet, even speaking broadly, some sports don’t have all of the aforementioned qualities. Now, it gets tricky. All real sports have time periods, whether they’re broken up into halves, quarters, short periods, rotations, rounds, matches or races. Every athlete also wears special gear, like cleats for soccer players, masks for catchers and goalies as well as for fencers. Besides the gear, there’s the equipment. Gloves, bats, sticks, swords, clubs, rackets and starting blocks all make the cut. These sports also tend to begin with the noise of a whistle, gun, buzzer or coin toss. Extreme sports are different. They developed, like most other sports, from a hobby, but grew into something new and different in the last 10 years. I usually say that if it’s in the Olympics, then it’s a sport, and snowboarding is definitely one, while skateboarding and in-line skating are not. These sports share qualities with professional ones, but still do not share the same