I am full. Satiated. I try to take in more. But I can’t.

I don’t watch sports anymore. There is too much of it.

“With naked delight,” Sports Illustrated’s Steve Rushin recently wrote, “we announce today the downsizing of sports, which have become more bloated than Bill Parcells and about as much fun.”

I don’t want picture-in-picture.

I don’t want up to 13 games every week.

I don’t want to log on to learn more about Emmit Smith’s shoe size.

I don’t want bottom-line scores. News on the half hour. Or cut aways to the Giants game.

That’s why I’m watching the Packers.

What I do want, what I miss, is the need to watch sports.

The romance is gone.

When I was 12 years old and my bedtime was before the late local news, I would ever gingerly creep down the outer third of the carpeted stairs – I tested it; the outer third made less noise – and push the living room door open.

I wanted to see if the Bulls won.

I prayed my parents would wait until Jay Leno to go to bed.

When they did, I slept peacefully or not at all, depending on the outcome of the game.

Now, I don’t watch the Bulls. Partly because they’re terrible, partly because I don’t care.

Cable television prides itself on satiating my every sports craving. Constantly.

And it’s spawned beyond ESPN.

Right now, in Des Moines – a city without any professional franchise and struggling minor league ones – you can listen to three local all-sports radio stations.

If you don’t listen, you can watch – either seven sports networks or 138 games a week on DIRECTV.

But don’t.

It sounds sacrilegious for a sportswriter to say this, but America needs to get a life.

Learn German, wash your car, call your mom. Try something besides the game. Besides Sportscenter.

Before Sept. 11, I wasn’t like this.

I was tiring of the relentlessness of sports, but I still watched with voracity.

Now, I’ve noticed how stupid the self-righteous NFL pre-game music sounds.

How moronic it is to place grave importance on Kurt Warner’s quarterback rating.

How quickly a good game, drenched in hyperbole, sprouts into The Game That Will Go Down in the Annals of History.

History is happening on 60 Minutes, the show following the game – which is why I’m watching more Mike Wallace and less Al Michaels.

I want sports to drop the self-importance.

Yes, games are relief in a world where little is found. But they are games. Trivial games.

And they’ll play again next week.

I still value them. I’d just like to have less to watch.

Soon, I may.

ESPN, ever prescient, has dipped into reality shows. “Sidelines” is an all access, 13-week pass to all things Texas A&M.

Only two episodes have aired. From the looks of things, it’s successful.

So, have we reached a point where the games and the highlights and the half-a-bachelor degree analyses are no longer enough entertainment? Do we need more?

Or have we reached our sports capacity? Have we moved on?

Maybe the latter.

Do you watch Monday Night Football? Or WWF?

Though interest has waned, wrestling still ranked fifth in sporting events watched two weeks ago, according to Nielsen Media Research.

Will you watch the World Series? Or the highlights on Sportscenter?

Though baseball still receives a better draw, Keith Murphy, WHO-TV sports director in Des Moines, said Sportscenter, coupled with its cable brethren, makes a stronger case for the highlights.

The next day, will you read about the game on the Web?

Or worse, will you punch in the Internet through your cell phone to check the final score?

Is it possible sports will offer us everything? Is it possible we’ll take nothing?

We are on the road to finding out.

Paul Kix is a junior in journalism and mass communications from Hubbard.