I am convinced that Hell is a place without football. If God wanted to punish me, and I'm pretty sure that I already have a handbasket somewhere with the name on it, he would put me in a sports bar with nothing but bowling and badminton available on the TVs. We all know that God is a football fan. There certainly is a lot of prayer going on when the home team is behind in the fourth quarter.
God would not have given us Tom Brady or David Beckham if he did not mean for us to watch the game. These men are far too pretty to be wasted languishing in the mud; they are meant to be on national television preferably without their shirts. I'm not prejudiced here--I am an equal-opportunity football lover, whether it be college, pro, or World Cup Soccer. (We Yanks call it soccer. Just an FYI to the ignorant out there--soccer/football is one of the most popular sports on earth. Proponents have been known to cause riots and ludicrous behavior in even the most stodgy, stiffupper-lip Englishman.) Personally, I look forward to football season with the type of stomach-churning fervor heretofore only seen by sugar-crazed toddlers on Christmas Day. Football is the best sport on earth.
First of all, for those of us living in the weather hellhole known as the Deep South, the weather during football season is excellent. We get our first taste of fall with glorious, crisp, sunny days and cool nights. The ferocious African jungle-style heat has finally diminished and we are left with weather patterns that behave in an astonishing, Camelot-like fashion. You can actually sit outside in the middle of the afternoon and enjoy the day without spontaneously combusting. This is otherwise impossible to do during the ravages of summer in the South.
Football season also signals some of the greatest celebrations of the year. Anyone who has attended the massive, drunken hysteria of the Sugar Bowl or the Florida-Georgia game in Jacksonville can attest to the Mardi-Gras style debauchery that accompanies these events. Crazed people stagger haphazardly through the streets, slavering at the idea of warm draft beer and congealed nachos. (And that's just the locals.) Some of the people that travel to these events don't even possess tickets--they are just there to enjoy the monumental, inebriated pep rally surrounding it. In what other sport do we see fans standing around in freezing weather, painted up and liquored up? We get to watch sixty minutes of enormous, muscular men beating the bejeezus out of one another in the name of sportsmanship. (This body-painting phenomenon seems to be especially popular with large, beer-bellied men in Northern climes. If you have ever seen a Packers or Patriots game, you have seen this species. They tend to be half-dressed, painted in team colors, drunk as a tinkler's dam, and yelling their fool heads off. It's fabulous.) Football can also lead to some interesting and costly bar fights, particularly among the alumni of competing schools, but that is another story altogether. I don't have enough time to relate the utter insanity of London after an Arsenal victory. Or a Gunners' loss. Whichever. Londoners employ any opportunity to get hammered on strong beer and yell at one another.
During football season we get the best holidays: Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Year's Eve. As if these holidays were not enough for any one person, we have Super Bowl Sunday to cap it all off at the end. The local police probably loathe Super Bowl Sunday. It means that even the meekest of social drinkers will put
away enough beer to feel an elephant. I have seen adorable, well-bred Southern belles turn into roaring, drink-befuddled hussies when their team loses a game. I have actually witnessed well-educated men engage in Mike Tysonesque fisticuffs over a penalty. Without football, what else would we have to discuss on Monday mornings with our co-workers?
The superlative thing about football is this--it gives us all one last chance. There is always another season, another down, or another half to anticipate. We can recollect our own days out on the gridiron, or merely mentally place ourselves, Walter Mitty style, in that moment of glory when a hail Mary pass, against all the
laws of physics, leads to a game-winning touchdown. College football in particular gives us all a chance to relive that one exceptional moment that defines us. A graduating senior that kicked the field goal that won the Rose Bowl can forever relive that moment as he trudges to his job in the firm of Snooze, Bland, Boring and Trite, LLC. Most of the kids playing in the NCAA will not get a shot at the pros. Even for those fortunate enough to become a vaunted member of the big leagues, college sports is their one opportunity to make a mark before money, fame, and the media corrupt them. College sports are about making a moment based solely on love of the game.
For those of you poor souls that didn't get the opportunity to attend a big football school, you honestly cannot fathom the carnival atmosphere that precedes any game. It is one of the best parties in the world because you can guarantee that you have something in common with at least half the attendees. Stand outside Death Valley in Clemson or the Swamp at UF on a Saturday night. The fervor is palpable, the excitement as sharp and clear as a beacon. Football is ritualistic. Football is tribal in the primitive sense of the word. It can bring out the best in its fans. For example, look at the support and respect the LSU players got the first day they took the field after Hurricane Katrina. I have seen grown men reduced to tears or writhing in ecstasy. We have all seen couples get engaged at a football match. Their love of the game commingles with their love for one another.
Football can also lead to fights, brutality, and vandalism. Despite this, football can embody the best of human culture. For that one day, we are concordant and united with a common hope. Football is a splendid celebration of what human culture can be at its best--an example of competition, fair play, and unity. In short, football gives all of us a chance to win, however vicariously, and that is something that is all too rare. God is indeed a football fan because he knows for those three hours we are thinking of something other than ourselves.
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