Football

Over the weekend I attended my first football game. For those of you who find it astonishing that a 24 year old American has never once watched a football game I must explain. My family has never been a sports family, at least not traditional team sports, my cousins did play ice hockey growing up and I remember watching the Devils practice quite often at the local rink. There was a brief stint when my older sister was a Mets fan, but I believe that just lasted through High School. Other than that we have been faithful equestrian fans since my little sister and I are actively involved in the Hunter Jumper arena. So now you may ask, what prompted this visit to the football stadium? My little sister is in the marching band, more precisely, in her first year of marching band she was selected to be pit leader of the band. So I found myself wandering in, lost, in support of my dear kid sister. I found her and she told me to select a seat near the 50 yard line since that would supply best visual for the half-time game which she would be performing. Since I had gotten there rather early I found a fabulous seat, front row at the 40 yard line. This section of general admission was soon filled up with the "gorilla killaz", the school spirit section (since the opposing team's mascot was a gorilla). Oh Joy. Now even though I did not grow up watching sports, since I moved here to the MidWest, and no one out here has any idea who the Devils are, I have found the opportunity to go to several team sport events. My company sponsored a kids softball team in the spring and I caught on pretty quick, I enjoyed the major league baseball game I had attended and I have learned to love soccer so I figured football wouldn't be so hard. Boy was I wrong. Flying solo to this event I had no one there to coach me on how the game was played so I was forced to learn by observation only. So after the first hut (is this the right term?) I tried desperately to find the ball. To no avail. I had no idea where it went after it left the hands of....was it the quarter back? So next start I figured I would watch to see who was being chased or tackled to see if I could follow the ball. So at the next start I had my eyes peeled on the field hoping to see where the majority of the action was so that I could see which team ended up with the ball. But it seemed to my untrained eye that everyone was tackled and half, if not more, of the field ended up on the ground! So I resorted to cheering when the "gorilla killaz" did and trying desperately to figure out what was actually going on. I began to get bored of this exercise about half-way through the 2nd quarter so I decided to start listening to the coaches. Well as it would turn out the seat I had selected was perfect for that. I was seating directly behind the defensive line and was able to hear the coaches very clearly, well as long as the "gorilla killaz" were not shouting out some obscure command about breaking someones legs and how some of the players were of a variety of choice words. It also seemed that fate was smiling in my direction that day since the assistant defensive coach was rather handsome and so I found it pretty easy to watch and listen to him. Half-time went on without a hitch, except the baton twirler dropped the baton on a few occasions, and I have seen better dancers. I have to say watching my sister beating the gong, and running the mallets was very impressive. After a very long second half and 2 over-times we lost the game. And so this is what I walked away with; 1) the defensive team plays in order to get the ball back into our hands, 2) the assistant defensive coach is very handsome, 3) the offensive team is supposed to score, but seems to let the opposing team take control of the ball too often, 4) did I mention he had dark curly hair? and 5) football should be called warball. Why you may ask? Well first of all it has nothing to do with feet except that the players are running on them and are continuously tripped up and fall off of them. And secondly it reminded me of the strategies of war. The soldiers (team players) go out and do what their CO's (Commanding Officers/Coaches) tell them to do in order to win their country (ball). Each play is like a small battle in the great war and the soldiers fight tirelessly to gain each goal and to keep their country ruling their territory. Oh and did I mention that one coach was hot??