In Praise of Football

I wash off in the creek after playing a game of sand volleyball and as I look above I see a plane flying low across the sky above the skyscrapers of downtown. It is September 10th. A strange and buried feeling of dread appears somewhere within me. I recall the moment over twenty years ago of my mother waking me up in shock and pointing me to the news on the television. But alas, the plane is flying over in the direction of the stadium. This is not a sad day. This is a good day. A football game is about to begin.

I walk through the park with my friend back to our cars and we check the score of the game. Texas is tied with Alabama. It is halftime. We go to a bar and put on a shirt to match the home team of Texas. He is from California. I am from Arizona. We find seats and for the next couple hours we become part of our new community.

If it is said the church is the great unifying force of a community, then so it should be also noted that the sport of baseball is America’s pastime. And yet, it is Football that has morphed into the great cultural religion and spectacle of modern America. Football. It is not a particularly modern game. Only men play, and the sport is guided by a sort of archaic militaristic chain of command where the players bash one another like cavemen. “Hit em!” “Fuck em’ up!” “Put that bastard down!” The bar hollers. And when that particularly poor young man wearing a number five on his back is viciously knocked to the ground the collective breath is taken out of a crowd of thousands.

Baseball is indeed America’s pastime and will always hold a special place. It is the pastoral remembrance of a clean, simple, and gorgeous sport. It is a huge field of green with the sun shining down and ten players scattered around waiting for something to happen in pristine uniforms. It is the scene of the oil painting in the study within the old money’s mansion lying across the water from Gatsby in Long Island. But Football is the television. Football is the coliseum of the empire. Football is twenty-two souls wearing helmets and armor and for hours pounding one another as hundreds of thousands of people roar.

The game is close. The home team Texas is winning against Alabama. No one expected Texas to keep the game close. Whisky shots begin appearing in increasing multiples. My friend and I order more beers imported from Mexico. The bar is a small room about the size of two living rooms with perhaps fifty people inside. Nearly all are wearing orange, the color of the home team. It is intimate. It is loud. It is a church. It is the place where we have all decided to join together on our day off after five days of hard labor and stress. We are the hoi polloi. We are the masses, the peasants. We are the group of fifty people who have collectively become a strange malleable energy whose emotions hang on young men whom we know nothing of rather than they wear the colors on our backs. We are strangers to another and yet in the next few hours we become friends. We shake and slap hands, pat another on the back. We exchange names but never last names because no one gives a damn about your family or background but rather who you are. If we are to be said to be a friendly nation it is surely a product or example of this phenomenon. We do not drink ourselves into mindless drones and we do not chant ditties to keep ourselves occupied. We are engaged. We pinch our lips and rub our temples. We are focused, eyes glued to the quick movements of twenty-two young players who have trained years for this moment and each of whom are locked in their own battle among the chaos. We are thinking, discussing, debating. “He pulled his hamstring so they ain’t running him.” “Nah, he just aint good, man. He missed two open receivers on those throws.” “It’s happening!” “No, not yet, don’t say that.” “If the shin is down then he’s down and it’s a safety.” “I think it was his ankle that went down, and then he fell on the other guy’s ass so it's good.” “What the fuck was that play call?” “His ankle’s busted so they don’t want to run him.” We discuss the betting and monetary impacts of the flow of the game because we are capitalists at heart and are wildly fascinated upon money. “The over is dead.” “Vegas is making a lot of money right now.” “I should have bet the spread.” “My God if Texas wins, the odds.”

We swear and pray in the lord’s name directly next to one another and through the breaks talk with the stranger beside us and discover a little about them. “I’m not a fan really but my son went to Alabama so I’m rooting for them.” “I’m here with my best friend of over fifty years and he went to Alabama and has already lost a lot of money on them.” “I grew up in San Marcos and my family been in the hill country since I don’t know when.” “I’m from El Paso and graduated in 2005, those were good years.” People not familiar with our sport will downgrade it for its breaks and complications but alas in our church we secretly admire the chance to talk with one another about the game and even deeper, about ourselves.

The game comes back on. It is tight. Texas is holding on. More shots are ordered. We pray, moan, and shout. Some begin to speak in tongues. “Targeting!” “If we do not do this then we are dead and didn’t deserve this.” “I told you that this would come in year two!” “Holy mother it is happening and it is here!” “Targeting!” “If the third stringer comes in and wins this then this is the team of destiny!” “Targeting!” “Four is the number!” “How the fuck is that targeting!?”

A man slams his hands on the bar and unleashes curses his mother would slap him for and besides him a woman not at all related pats him on the shoulders and assures him that they got this and to have faith.

“Targeting!” “It’s not over!” “How the fuck is that targeting!?”

The Texas kicker comes to kick the ball made of pigskin through two metal poles. Fifty people hold their breath and pray. Lord have mercy on this scrawny curly-haired ginger whose size nine foot holds the passions of millions. He makes it and the room explodes. More pats on the back. That’s about seven now I’ve received. “It’s happening!” “Holy shit it’s happening!” The dogs are not impressed. They lay besides their owners on the ground oblivious to the pandemonium thinking whatever beautiful things dogs think upon.

Texas is winning. There is hope. There are clasped hands. There is more discussion and debate among strangers if this is indeed happening. The lone Alabama fan holds a smirk on their face. They are confident, but they are not saying anything. The fan is outnumbered but they hold faith in the saints of their quarterback and head coach and remain calm in the storm of evil and adversity. Alabama drives the ball, and with no time left, Alabama wins the game where Texas had led the entire time. Groans rumble throughout the room. Silence gathers. The dream is dead. Hearts are broken. Emotions gather themselves. And then we turn to another. We shake hands. We say it was nice to meet you. We say it was a pleasure. We say best of luck. We say take care. We say good game.