I would (and do) give the same "advice" about being able to enjoy talking to people with non-mainstream interests. People in general aren't great at being interested in people who aren't interested in the same things as them. Nerds are better at it than most, because nerd-dom is largely defined by having wide swaths of interests, but sports seems to be a widespread blind spot, possibly because of resentment at having their own interests scoffed at by many sports fans (at least I'm pretty sure that's where my past anti-sports feelings came from).
