If erectile dysfunction had been around when I was a kid, I wouldn’t be here today.

Let me rephrase: I wouldn’t be here today writing this column, because I would never have become interested in sports, because I would never have been allowed to watch them on television with my dad.

In those days, the average family had one television. We were average. Typically, the father would decide what the family would watch. We were typical. So I watched a lot of sports, and I got the bug.

But if every sporting event had included middle-aged couples canoodling in bathtubs, I would have been sent to my room. And I might still be there.

I can imagine turning my shining, innocent face to my father, ensconced in his recliner, and asking, “What’s an erec — ?” There would have been a Dad-shaped hole in the back door.

And he’d still be running.

Oh, I suppose middle-aged guys had ED in the ’70s. But apparently they just put up with it. Women, too, I guess. They didn’t call that the Greatest Generation for nothing.

Commercials that air during sports events have always had the distinctive — even musky — scent of male about them. I get that. I am sure sports television advertising reflects the interests of a majority of sports television viewers.

I just wish I was in that majority, or rather that the minority was occasionally acknowledged, and not in a Swedish-Bikini-Team kind of way. It’s not surprising that more women don’t watch sports on television; it’s a miracle any do.

To sit through the array of male-dominated commercials is painful at times. Many ads don’t include women; those that do don’t acknowledge them as sports fans — or consumers, for that matter.

Consider the Heineken commercial in which the woman shows off her huge walk-in closet to her friends, who start squealing. Meantime, her husband is showing off his huge beer-filled closet to his friends, who start squealing.

I actually like that commercial — especially the guy who does the geeky little clapping dance — but I would be more likely to squeal over a closet full of Guinness than a closet full of Jimmy Choos.

Of course, all of this annoyance can be solved by that handy little gadget called the remote control. My theory is that the remote was invented by a nervous father, not unlike mine, who was embarrassed once too often by the constant barrage of commercials for beer and Viagra. (Not to be taken in combination, by the way.)

This would also explain the male’s superior use of the device. If working the remote were a sport, my dad would be a first-round draft choice. (If working the DVD player were a sport, my dad would be on the disabled list.)

During a recent visit to my former Home on the Range, I got to observe the master at work. One day we watched “Dirty Harry,” the NBA playoffs and the Royals, all at the same time, with no Cialis commercials and no Dad-shaped holes in the door.

You might remember that afternoon, when Clint Eastwood relieved Zack Greinke in the ninth, struck out Zodiac and won the Western Conference semifinals.

— Tracee Hamilton is a Kansas University graduate in journalism. Her Home on the Range is in Lincoln.