The Problem with Football

Sorry, I was a band geek in high school and college.  And although I went to my share of football games, it was all about the timeouts and halftime, so we could blow our horns like crazies instead of sit bored out of our minds.  The only time I watched any part of a game was during the brief period when I had a crush on one of the linebackers.  Or whatever the big guys are called.  See what I mean?

But now I have a crush on another big guy.  This one is my 11-year old son.  And for now, he plays football.  So it’s become a good-mom necessity to go to more games, and over time I’ve realized that for me, there is an inherent problem with football.

I don’t get it.

For one, I don’t understand the craze of being nuts over a team or player you have no personal affiliations with.  (I’m a Cardinals fan…oh wait, that’s baseball…but it still applies.  Have you ever lived in St. Louis?  Gone to school there?  Is one of your friends on the team?  So why do you paint yourselves colors and act like a lunatic on television?  Oh wait…that’s football again.)  Whatever.

I do, however, get the concept when it is your school, your hometown, your state, your son (or your crush).  But I still have a problem with football.  The real deal is I just can’t understand the sport.  I really have tried.  I get the dynamics of a football field…I’ve marched on them countless times.  I understand the concept of offense and defense, the center who snaps, the quarterback who hopefully catches the snap and runs like mad, the “big guys” who bash into each other, the ball, the end zones, and the scoring.  But I simply can’t find the players once they line up, or the ball when it’s in play.  (Obviously I’m not a fan of the running game).  People are yelling and stomping and standing up and I’m wondering what is going on…even though I’m trying to make sense of the mash-up of male bodies.  It makes me feel like I came to the stadium on the short bus, and I hate that feeling.  I’m constantly looking at the score board…or for the ref’s hands to go straight up.  Then I can whoop because I know somebody just scored.  (The team with the little light-up outline of the ball, of course).  Unless there is a flag on the play, and then I feel humiliated again because I’m just starting to cheer when everyone else is sitting back down muttering ugly things under their breath.  (Or out loud within earshot of my other children).

So I’m stuck.  My husband loves the sport, my son plays in it, and most people I know are fans…from moderate to rabid.  It’s not their fault that I’m football-incompetent.  Or that I let that fact get to me so much I dread going to the football stadium in case someone figures out my dirty secret.  Maybe it’s just a personal handicap for me, something I will learn to live with and everyone around me will just smile and nod sympathetically.

Hi, my name is Beth, and I have a football problem…

I guess there are worse things.