Why Football?

What You Already Know

The men are huge, and then they build themselves up with pads and helments, and they grunt and sweat and then plow into each other again & again. Frankly, you like men just fine, but in this guise you have historically chosen to leave them to their caveman antics. Sunday afternoons are better spent enjoying just about any other pursuit.

And yet seeping through the culture, all the way through to your father/husband/brother... there is football.

It's not that you don't enjoy sport. You may be an athlete in your own right, physically fit from hiking to basketball to dance. But really, what could you ever get out of a sport like football, a sport you could never actually play? The ultimate boys club. "Let them have it," you say!

But wait... men are only seeing half the picture. It's women who get the 360 degree view.

up next... The Romance of Football

On the field, forgiveness

Michael Vick has taken his second chance seriously. I'm not surprised by how much of me is ready to forgive and cheer and enjoy the quarterback's return. But I know he must look morally ugly to some people.

Part of me has already forgiven him, and part of me hopes he feels awful about what he did for the rest of his life. If he does, then he really has been rehabilitated.

The Vikings Cardinals game was not on my local TV this past Sunday. But really, I made plans to go out and volunteer making care packages for the homeless BEFORE I knew that.

So Iwould have missed it, anyway. Ho hum, just another another Brett Favre return from a chin-splitting knockout to pass for ultimate yards and win in OT.

Are You Game for Two More?

It's not that I don't think four pre-season games is too many, I do. But adding another two regular season games to the NFL season will really change the sport.

Sure, they're thinking it will rake in two more weeks of fan purchasing in oh so many forms, but it's not just the player rosters that will have to increase to support the increased losses in battle, it's all the long term injury this will cause. Just how much of the future are they willing to sign away for the present?

Say goodbye the smattering of first string players who are able to last to the final game of the season. The playoffs may become an entirely different beast, with 3rd string quarterbacks throwing to the tight end who's also filling in for the linebacker on defense, etc. And of course and lots of mid-season trading and improvising.

The NY Times rolled out some blunt information about concussions http://www.nytimes.com/info/concussions-in-football/ . Statistics show the incidence of Alzheimers in ex-NFL players is at "a rate of 19 times" the national norm for men aged 30-49.

Me Spectator

I keep thinking I have to convince myself that football is more than football. As if by itself it's not "meaningful" enough. After all, it's just people bashing against each other for territory and exercise, right?

But as soon as I write the sentence I see that sport stands for more than itself, like in the moment of instinct during play, the athlete's body memory/mind blend is off the charts. Now, that's meaningful.

Then I come back to myself, the spectator. Most of us. And what we get from it. It's got to be more than cheers for the home team and excuse for the couch time.

Did most of us play sports as kids, in school or elsewhere? I was on a losing team in high school basketball, but I loved the game & comraderie, and I never once questioned its deepr value, because I felt it.

Favre coming back! It makes ME feel young... or at least a shread of the possibility that youth might last another season.

The Fan That Goes Way Back

When I was a kid, my dog chewed

the corners off my favorite football card.

Of course I still have the card.
This one in particular was always kept on the top of my stack of cards.

So, I guess it was the one most likely to flop into a dog's mouth.

Ruined beyond any value but sentimental.

It's not taking up much space.

That's when I can really indulge in sentiment.

Besides, it's Calvin Hill, so handsome and powerful-looking in 1970.

Unfortunately, that didn't last, either.

Here he is, five years later...

The Endurance Factor

Three years since my last post. Not exactly the way things are supposed to work in the blogosphere. I would hardly have believed it if, back in 2007 someone would have told me Brett Favre would have still been a contender for the Super Bowl in 2010.

But I have been jubilant every year since then when he has come back for another season (whatever the uniform), and telling myself at the end of each season, that was enough. It's okay if he retires. Silent gratitude and the admiring of his skills, charm, endurance and perseverance.

At the beginning of the Viking Saints championshop game last Sunday, I was in the inner revelry again, trying to savor the present tense of his being alive on the stage. Coming out strong and driving for a touchdown.

And then the pounding began. The brutality of the Saints pass rush. I have to admit to acting a little "Mommy" when he gets sacked. There is my intake of breath and the hands clasped to the mouth.

He took a big hit to the midsection, having been driven to the turf, and the Vikings fumbled on the play just after that, and still he dove into the pile for the ball. But wait. Truth be told, Favre was not the first one to the scene, and I thought I saw him watching (waiting?) to see if his teammate, who was already sprawling ahead for the ball, was going to get it. Then, only went he missed it, did Favre jump in there. Was that brief hesitation significant? I don't recall ever seeing it before.

Even after that he was accurate. And even after he was twisted between two flying defenders and carried off the field, he came back. Foot taped up and limping, he was accurate. ... uh.. Right until the interception which sealed the possibility of a win in regulation.

This is not about whether or not Brett Favre will come back again. He already has.