Too much football?
Are you ready for some (more) football? I once was, and truth to tell, still am.
You’d think that, as a seasoned retiree I would have long outgrown such a game that younger guys still go bonkers over. After all, football is vastly overexposed on TV. A few national channels even carry “significant” high school games.
Yet, there I was one weekend this fall, wearing a new Redskins ball cap and sticking a new Texas Aggie decal on my car’s bumper. Alas, I shouldn’t have bothered, for both football teams obliged by quickly rolling over and playing dead.
The Redskins ball cap was bought to complete a personal ensemble. You see, my Yorkie pup Lollipop and I competed in Aquia Harbour’s first Octoberfest dog show, at our new Bark Park. She wore a Redskins sweater and I a Redskins jersey plus the ball cap. (She won third place in the beauty contest, by the way.)
Ridiculous? Of course. Isn’t this good-old, and I do mean OLD, boy way too long in the tooth for such football worship? Perhaps. I started out playing in junior high way back when the single wing offense was still in vogue. Ask your grandfather about that.
Then in high school, I finally lettered as a starting tackle in my senior year. In Texas that accomplishment was valued as highly as a masters degree. It was way back when no black kids were on our team—or in the school for that matter. And only sissies like me wore those ridiculed face masks that are required today. Now, blacks seem to dominate and excel, much as they have for many years in basketball.
Even so, football hasn’t changed all that much. Someone once claimed that football remains so uniquely fascinating, but not because of the thrill of victory. Rather, it’s the dread of being grossly humiliated physically in a game, seeing your team get thrashed.
Yeah, sure. But then why do I sit there endlessly watching so many football games on TV? I don’t do that with basketball and hardly ever with baseball, which is a total bore--slower even than my treadmill workouts lately.
Football on TV still entrances me, with its closeups and replays. But it’s not the same as being there, you retort. I admit: It’s much better. I know from experience. The real thing gets tiresome and crowd noise won’t let me doze off if the game gets boring. And if so, at home watching TV I can simply switch channels to a better contest.
But what about the fresh-air, autumnal thrill in the stadium--the bands playing, the drunks sloshing, the crucial plays unseen due to those cute cheerleaders?
I do miss all that a bit, but make up for it monthly by attending those rowdy team breakfasts featuring the veteran members of our ROMEO club (Retired Old Men Eating Out) at the County Fare in Stafford. You should see us do the Wave.
Even so, it’s great to recall those memorable stadium experiences of yore.
--In college, I was there when my Texas Aggies actually defeated Texas U. in College Station, a rarity then and now.
--Earlier, in Dallas my dad and I watched SMU’s wonderful Doak Walker perform in the Cotton Bowl.
--And in Chicago’s Soldier Field, I saw the college all-stars play the reigning NFL champs (in an annual preseason event back then), but missed a great pass by Notre Dame’s Ralph Guglielmi while I was explaining to my wife which number he wore.
For many years my dad and I would go to games, but that was before TV. Much later, in his final days, at age 90-plus and confined to a bed, he still watched his Dallas Cowboys. When they had whipped us again, he’d delightedly phone me from Texas and rub it in. “What happened to the Redskins, Bud?”. (He'll surely chuckle when he sees what the Cowboys will do this weekend.)
In the years since, it’s been great fun celebrating at Super Bowl parties. An unforgettable one: Redskins versus the Broncos. Son Buddy and I once had a tradition of hoisting a cool one whenever Washington scored. Thus, quarterback Doug Williams and the Skins scored five touchdowns in the second quarter. I don’t remember the second half.
Fast-forward to recent college games, many of which have similarly been terrific to watch on TV: Texas beating USC for the national title, Boise State upsetting Oklahoma last winter in perhaps the best college game ever, and then Appalachian State upsetting Michigan this fall. Then of course there was UVA, scoring several cliff-hanging victories.
But never mind, another game is coming on.
You’d think that, as a seasoned retiree I would have long outgrown such a game that younger guys still go bonkers over. After all, football is vastly overexposed on TV. A few national channels even carry “significant” high school games.
Yet, there I was one weekend this fall, wearing a new Redskins ball cap and sticking a new Texas Aggie decal on my car’s bumper. Alas, I shouldn’t have bothered, for both football teams obliged by quickly rolling over and playing dead.
The Redskins ball cap was bought to complete a personal ensemble. You see, my Yorkie pup Lollipop and I competed in Aquia Harbour’s first Octoberfest dog show, at our new Bark Park. She wore a Redskins sweater and I a Redskins jersey plus the ball cap. (She won third place in the beauty contest, by the way.)
Ridiculous? Of course. Isn’t this good-old, and I do mean OLD, boy way too long in the tooth for such football worship? Perhaps. I started out playing in junior high way back when the single wing offense was still in vogue. Ask your grandfather about that.
Then in high school, I finally lettered as a starting tackle in my senior year. In Texas that accomplishment was valued as highly as a masters degree. It was way back when no black kids were on our team—or in the school for that matter. And only sissies like me wore those ridiculed face masks that are required today. Now, blacks seem to dominate and excel, much as they have for many years in basketball.
Even so, football hasn’t changed all that much. Someone once claimed that football remains so uniquely fascinating, but not because of the thrill of victory. Rather, it’s the dread of being grossly humiliated physically in a game, seeing your team get thrashed.
Yeah, sure. But then why do I sit there endlessly watching so many football games on TV? I don’t do that with basketball and hardly ever with baseball, which is a total bore--slower even than my treadmill workouts lately.
Football on TV still entrances me, with its closeups and replays. But it’s not the same as being there, you retort. I admit: It’s much better. I know from experience. The real thing gets tiresome and crowd noise won’t let me doze off if the game gets boring. And if so, at home watching TV I can simply switch channels to a better contest.
But what about the fresh-air, autumnal thrill in the stadium--the bands playing, the drunks sloshing, the crucial plays unseen due to those cute cheerleaders?
I do miss all that a bit, but make up for it monthly by attending those rowdy team breakfasts featuring the veteran members of our ROMEO club (Retired Old Men Eating Out) at the County Fare in Stafford. You should see us do the Wave.
Even so, it’s great to recall those memorable stadium experiences of yore.
--In college, I was there when my Texas Aggies actually defeated Texas U. in College Station, a rarity then and now.
--Earlier, in Dallas my dad and I watched SMU’s wonderful Doak Walker perform in the Cotton Bowl.
--And in Chicago’s Soldier Field, I saw the college all-stars play the reigning NFL champs (in an annual preseason event back then), but missed a great pass by Notre Dame’s Ralph Guglielmi while I was explaining to my wife which number he wore.
For many years my dad and I would go to games, but that was before TV. Much later, in his final days, at age 90-plus and confined to a bed, he still watched his Dallas Cowboys. When they had whipped us again, he’d delightedly phone me from Texas and rub it in. “What happened to the Redskins, Bud?”. (He'll surely chuckle when he sees what the Cowboys will do this weekend.)
In the years since, it’s been great fun celebrating at Super Bowl parties. An unforgettable one: Redskins versus the Broncos. Son Buddy and I once had a tradition of hoisting a cool one whenever Washington scored. Thus, quarterback Doug Williams and the Skins scored five touchdowns in the second quarter. I don’t remember the second half.
Fast-forward to recent college games, many of which have similarly been terrific to watch on TV: Texas beating USC for the national title, Boise State upsetting Oklahoma last winter in perhaps the best college game ever, and then Appalachian State upsetting Michigan this fall. Then of course there was UVA, scoring several cliff-hanging victories.
But never mind, another game is coming on.
posted by Ben Blankenship at
1:20 PM
