That sounds like a joke, but seriously, FifG was the third member of a Roger Goodell/Gerald McCoy split screen on Thursday night. Which is really, extremely hysterical.
Attending the NFL draft was amazing, and I would highly recommend it.
I have tons to say about the event, and I sort of already said it. So please check out the Bucs page on Chicks in the Huddle for all of the info: http://chicksinthehuddle.com/tag/Buccaneers/
Also,you can check out FifG and the awesome hat (oh, and the commissioner and the third overall pick) here.
I am taking a small FifG hiatus, due to lots of writing on Chicks in the Huddle, the holidays, and annoyingly lingering illness. BUT, this one made a small post worthwhile.
Devin Aromashodu: deh-vin ah-roh-mah-shah-doo
Let’s put it in a sentence (because it’s fun!).
Said Bob to his friend Shadoo whence brownies are baking: That smells delicious! What is that Aromashodu?
The Bears wide receiver has my new all-time favorite football player name!
I’ve already mentioned that I hated football when I was little. Honestly, I never thought I would overcome the sincere dislike I had for the sport. I was one of those only-watch-the-Super-Bowl-and-then-only-pay-attention-to-the-halftime-show people. (Yes, I used to love the halftime shows. Sequins? Loved. Random children with flags? Loved. Oddly perky dancers in top hats? Loved.) Also, I had no innovative blogs (ahem) to turn to when my interest waned and I needed a reason to watch the games.
So what/who was responsible for such a football life-altering change? My dad!
My dad had Bucs season tickets for my entire childhood, but I’d never been interested in going to the games with him. In addition to my dislike of football, it happens to be really, really hot in Tampa roughly 10 months of the year, and sitting for 3+ hours in the sun did not appeal to me. But then one year I had a lot of time on my hands, and I decided to join him.
I went to see every home game with my dad that year. Although I understood nothing and had millions of questions, my dad patiently answered every one. What was that penalty? Why did they stop the game? Why’s everyone booing? That was bad, right? No matter how silly the question, my dad never got angry or rolled his eyes or told me to shut up and watch (a skill which I, sadly, did not inherit). He just explained everything. And the more the game made sense, the more I started to enjoy it. Each game I became a little more aware of the players and the rules, and I found myself getting caught up in the excitement and the crowd. I was hooked.
And even though I moved away from Florida the next year, I kept watching football. The more I learned, the more I had to discuss with my dad. That hasn’t changed. I know lots of gals adore their fathers but who have nothing to talk to their dads about, but that’s never been a problem for me. And even though I have a particularly awesome dad whom I’d be able to talk to anyway, I love the fact that we have always have football news to discuss in our weekly Sunday phone calls. I love that we can email each other when there’s a big news story or send excited/outraged texts while we watch the game 1,000 miles apart.
(For the record, I did hang up on my dad once because of a football argument. The Bucs lost to the Colts on Monday Night Football despite having been up by 21 points with 3 minutes left in the game, and I called my dad to noisily commiserate. He told me to calm down because it was “just football.” Clearly I was in the right on that one.)
So, in conclusion, another great reason to like football: building an extra special bond with your dad. (Or mom. Or whoever likes football in your family.)
Touching words, ladies. Don’t believe me? Well, tomorrow is NFL draft day, one of the best football days of the year. I honestly hesitated to write about the big day in the blog, because I know the draft is considered must see tv for only the most die-hard football fans, but I think it gets an unfair rap. In fact, I’d go so far as to say that at least the first round of the draft is one of the most girl-friendly football events of the year.
It’s like the Olympics. You know you love the Olympics. Who doesn’t? This past year I watched swimming, track, a marathon, gymnastics, diving–couldn’t get enough of it. Now if I turned on the tv tonight and there was a diving competition on the screen I would switch channels. Not interested. So why do I/we watch the Olympics? The back stories! You get to know all about these people who come from all over the country and all over the world–you learn about the lengths that they’ve gone to excel, how rigorously they’ve had to train for years on end, and all they’ve sacrificed throughout their lives for the love of sport. Draft day is just like that! But without any of the boring fencing stuff!
And I know that there’s a big difference between winning a gold medal and taking on a full-time job with a ginormous salary, but it’s still a palpably emotional day. A few of the guys who are expected to be drafted early are invited to New York City to sit in the ballroom at Radio City Music Hall and get their pictures taken when their names are called. Others have news crews that head to their houses and film the guys when they are chosen, typically surrounded by screaming family members.
Which brings me back to the beginning. When a team chooses a player, they typically call the kid before his name is announced publicly (whether in NYC or at home, the players always have a cell phone on hand). And, I’m sorry, but every time a guy picks up the phone and says, “Hello, Coach,” I get teary eyed. He has a coach, and he has a team, and he’s made it. It’s a boy achieving his dreams and becoming a man and making his family proud and… well, anyway, it’s fraught with meaning. Fraught, I tell you. Like that episode of Friday Night Lights when Smash gets accepted to A&M but times like 1,000. And, I’m sorry, but I know you cried when you watched that episode. Don’t try to pretend you didn’t.
(On a side note, I keep praying that some team will draft Smash, because darn if he isn’t the best football player, and his mom sacrificed so much for him, and I love them all.)
(And, yes, I know he’s fictional.)
(Sort of.)
(Oh, but here’s the non-fictional Aaron Curry. I love him almost as much as Smash. Ok, probably more since he’s a “real” “person” and not a “tv” “character.” You will love him, too, when you read this. Promise.)
Aaron Curry is an awesome person and also very, very large. Watch the draft for Aaron.
It pains me to write this at the moment, given my fair Buccies’ two consecutive losses, but I didn’t manage to write it before last week’s horrendous Monday night game, so I’m writing it now. Perhaps it will lift me out of the football doldrums.
Reason number four for becoming a football fan is that football gives you something to look forward to.
Here’s the story: I recently started a new job. This is good news, as I was laid off from my previous job smack dab in the middle of the worst recession in a million, jillion years. But, as all people who’ve started a new job know, it’s really tricky to get into the swing of things when you’re just starting out. You don’t know anyone, so you don’t really have anyone to talk to. You’re not sure how to pace your work or what is expected of you. You have no routine, because you don’t know how things really work on a day-to-day basis. Getting the job is exciting and full of promise, but actually starting the work is kind of intimidating. At least I think so.
I began this job the day after the Bucs’ Thanksgiving weekend win against the Saints, and the upcoming game against the Panthers–on a Monday night! So that everyone can see how awesome the Bucs are!–was this glorious looming event for me. I was seriously excited the entire week for this game. I read the hopeful articles every morning and every afternoon at lunchtime about how the players were ready, the coaches were ready, the world was ready. I contained my usual Buc-induced skepticism and let myself get really excited, mostly because I wanted something to feel excited about. Getting up and going to work that Monday was a breeze, because I knew that if I made it through that day of work, on the other end would be the most. exciting. game. ever. And so the day flew by.
And, yes, the Bucs lost in humiliating fashion. But I didn’t even mind that much (well, maybe a little), because I felt kind of grateful to the game for getting me through my first week and a day at the new company.
And guess what? Being a football fan is almost entirely about getting excited before games happen. Let’s face it, a team is going to play 20 games tops during the season–most only 16 games–so there’s a lot more time spent thinking about games and planning for games than actually watching games. The season ends in February, and you have to wait until the end of July to even read about the players practicing for the next season. Sure, there’s a draft in April that’s pretty exciting, but that’s also really just about getting excited for the players who are getting ready to enter the league to get ready to practice to get ready to play.
That’s a lot of getting ready, and it leaves a lot of time for fans to get amped up. And considering how few teams are actually any good, it’s really nice to have so much time to focus on what could be, what could happen this year as opposed to last year and as opposed to the one before that and the one before that… It’s like Hope Floats. Except that I totally don’t remember that movie and don’t think that I liked it much, honestly. I do have an odd obsession with Bullock’s piece de resistance, “While You Were Sleeping.” I will seriously watch it every time it’s on TV. I see those opening-credit train tracks, and I’m like, “Sandra Bullock and Bill Pullman!!! SCORE!”
But I digress.
The fourth reason you should be watching football is because Hope Floats.
As a credit to my keen sense of “things” and “how it is” and such, I’ve come to grasp the fact that an object at rest stays at rest, and a nonfoobtall-liking person like football stays not liking football.
As a credit to my “visionary nature” and “unmitigated sense of purpose,” I’m going to keep trying to change the laws of physics and football liking. With that, reason #3:
It makes life more exciting.
For instance: two Sundays ago, the Bucs vs. the Kansas City Chiefs. The Chiefs came into this game with one win, the Bucs with five. The Bucs were supposed to win. Were nearly guaranteed to win. Sometimes games such as these are considered “trap games”–meaning that the favored team is so confident that they will win that they really don’t bother to prepare for the game and end up being humiliated by the team who has nothing to lose.
Well, a quarter into this game the Bucs were 21 points down. TWENTY-ONE POINTS!!! The Bucs were playing awfully, and though I wanted to help, I could not. Well, I did do one thing: I changed from my sky blue v-neck into the ol’ lucky comeback shirt. But the Bucs kept on sucking. I watched this game on the computer at home, which was good because it left me free to instant message my friend Renada every two seconds with witty bon mots like, “NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO” and
“#(*&$# @#$(* $@(^!($ (*!@^$(%&#^ “
(She wasn’t watching the game, but she did a nice job of commiserating.)
Anyway, I was prepared to throw in the towel, burn my lucky shirt, avoid game recaps for the week, and give up on the entire season altogether because the team was so awful that they will never win another game ever and they are stupid and I hate them and so there. But then they started making a comeback.
YAY! I thought. WE CAN WIN!
And then we threw an interception.
FORGET IT! THEY’RE LOSERS!
And then we scored.
HURRAY FOR SECOND CHANCES!
And then we fumbled.
I’M TURNING THIS OFF RIGHT NOW!
And then we won.
WE WON!
I tried to type this all to Renada, but my hands were shaking too much. Joy in my soul, nervous palpitations in my heart. It was a good ending to a poor afternoon, and it was a lift to the day and, heck, thanks to the Bucs, I was a winner for the entire week! Because in football, you stay a winner until your team loses. So I and my lucky shirt were both winners for the week. Two weeks, actually, since the Bucs had the week off this week. Winner!
So anyway, the excitement of football is real no matter the win or loss. The jumping up and down. The praying your team will win. Thrill of victory. Agony of defeat. All that good stuff. And you don’t even need to work out in the offseason, or get crushed by 300 lb men, or drink protein shakes to get that–you just have to turn on your tv!
Does enjoying the weekly heart attack induced by football make me crazy? How about my fascination with Li’l Davie Archuleta?
All right, let’s review. The #1 reason to like football was Sense of Community. That will appear on the test, so please write it down. Everyone got it? Great, let’s move on.
I saw Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist last night. I really liked it. Anyone else seen it? Even beyond my ever-so-slightly inappropriate crush on Michael Cera–he recently turned 20, which moves the crush out of the incredibly, disturbingly inappropriate category–this movie was completely charming. I recommend it.
But what, you may ask, does this have to do with football? Fantastic question!
See, watching a romantic sort of film is a little depressing for gals on the whole. Or for me, anyway, but I’m going to generalize because I’ve talked to several friends who agree. Because men in love movies are unlike men in real life, and in all of the ways women would tend to wish men would be. Case in point, Michael “Barely Legal” Cera plays a young hipster boy, Nick, in high school who’s been dumped by his beautiful, popular girlfriend and is completely depressed and obsessed with winning her back. So far so realistic. Then he meets Norah, and though he’s still hung up on the ex, he soon realizes that Norah (spoiler alert!) is beautiful in her own way–possibly his soul mate, in fact–and spends much of the movie making mooney faces at her and caressing her hair and lending her his sweatshirt and then letting her keep it.
In real life, Nick would probably want his sweatshirt back, because it was his favorite. Probably he wouldn’t talk about his feelings much. And even though Nick and Norah would probably be very happy in a long-term relationship, soon enough Nora would likely have to be all, “Nick, remember how you used to caress my hair when we first met?” And he’d be like, “Yeah, but now we’re dating so I don’t have to anymore!” And she’d be like, “But could you please, once in a while?” And he’d be like, “Of course! I’m sorry, Sweetie.” And then he’d plop his hand on top of her head and like pat it a couple of times and then pick up the remote and start flipping through the channels.
Now, to be fair, the reason men are generally less demonstrative in real life than in the movies is because that’s the way they are raised. We Americans like our men light on the emotions and heavy on the strength. And if your boyfriend/husband/whatever else did stare at you with googly eyes 24/7 and wanted to discuss where your relationship stands and the like, it would honestly be kind of annoying, right? But one area where men are allowed to be emotionally forthright is in sports, and it’s a really nice thing to behold–especially in football, a game where incredibly large, angry men run full speed into each other in what is basically a duel to the pain. But these muscular giants are working together to win games, and in the best of times and with the best of egos, the love that they share for the sport and the support that they have for each other comes through.
Case in point: Last year, the Bucs’ star running back, Carnell “Cadillac” Williams, was off to a great start. He’d had an insanely good rookie year, but an injury the following year left him unable to make many big plays. He worked out in the off-season and seemed ready to match his rookie year play, when he fell and tore his patellar tendon–an injury that may be career-ending. Of course, no one knew the severity of the injury at the moment Cadillac went down, but when the team saw him grimacing on the field, holding his knee, the Bucs went over to see how he was doing. And it wasn’t just one or two teammates who walked over to check on him, not just the medics or the coaches, but the entire team, every member, who stood up, walked across the field and gave him a high five or a pat on the head. This sort of thing doesn’t happen often, and such scenes are tinged with the other players’ fears that they, too, may be hurt at some point, no doubt. But on a deeper level, the act showed that Cadillac was their friend, that they wanted him to succeed, and that they were on his side.
I saw a Steelers game the other night, as well, where QB Ben Roethlisberger’s throwing armed was all amess. To top it off a defender pushed him to the ground, causing him more pain. Ben rolled around on the ground, face scrunched tight, and his teammates got the message. They knew he was going to go into superman quarterback mode and play through the pain, so a few of them walked back and gathered around him, wrapped their arms around his waster, and carried him up the field a few yards to the next huddle. It was a small thing–the announcers didn’t even mention it–but it was really quite touching. Like they knew he was fighting it out for them, and they wanted to return the favor.
I love stuff like that. Almost as much as having my hair caressed by a googly-eyed suitor.
That would make Reason to Like Football #2: Guys showing emotion–and not the made-for-film kind.
Um… Apparently Cadillac’s injury brought out the emotions of others, too. This is insane. Please enjoy.
I’ve been reading your blog, though I must say, I still don’t get football!
First of all, I am so excited to have a reader, much less reader mail. And, ok yes, the reader in question is a friend of mine. But still, very exciting. (Also, I hope it’s ok that I published the mail in question. Blog ethics are beyond me. Maybe someone else should write a blog ethics blog…)
So the proposed point of the blog is to get people engaged in watching and discussing football, and of course “getting it” is fundamental to doing either/both. I want to do right by the FifG readers and inspire you all to enjoy the game, so I thought back about what it was that got me engaged in the first place, since you know that it took me a while to warm up to the sport.
This is my story of how I accepted football into my life:
I graduated from a prep high school in Tampa, Florida, and I decided to take a year off between high school and college (needlessly long story). Though I’d lived in Tampa all of my life, I really didn’t have any friends left in the city that year. See, as with most prep schools, students who graduate typically go on to study at impressive institutions of higher learning that are far, far from home. So there I was, living with my parents, working at an ice cream shop, and being generally ornery and pubescent (i.e. fighting with my mom on a minutely basis), while my friends met new friends and went to classes and parties 1,000 miles away.
At the time, my dad had season’s tickets to the Bucs’ games. Now he’d already had those tickets for approximately 15 years, but I never wanted to go to games with him before because a) it’s really, really hot in Florida, and b) I hated football. But now that my social options were restricted, I decided it would be a good idea to take my dad up on his offer to spend four hours each Sunday outside of my house and away from my mother. (Author’s note: My mom and I get along very well now.)
At first I wasn’t sure what was going on in the games at all. I understood basically that the offense got 4 chances (downs) to try to move the ball 10 yards, and if they didn’t manage to do so, they had to give the ball back to the other team. I understood that a touchdown plus extra point merited a team 7 points and a field goal earned them 3. That was the sum total of my knowledge. Luckily, the Bucs were a rebuilding team at that time, which meant that they made some good plays but mostly they played mediocre, relatively boring games, leaving plenty of time for me to ask my dad, What just happened? Why did the game stop? Why are people booing? And to my dad’s credit, he answered all of the questions.
The more I knew about what was going on, the more excited I was to watch the games. A famous sociologist once said that humans like being part of a group, and it’s a difficult point to argue. Little compares to being in a crowd of 50,000 people cheering together, high-fiving and hugging each other. I used to love walking out of the stadium and back to the car after a winning game. Bucs fans weren’t used to winning much at this point in time, and the sense communal joy after a win was palpable. I relished walking in the swirling masses down the winding cement walkways that led to the parking lots–no one left early on winning days, so space was tight. It was one of my favorite parts of the game–even as I was jostled and hit on the head by poster board signs and flailing arms–because of the excited buzz everyone shared. Inevitably, someone would shout, “TAMPA!” and the rest of the crowd, the thousands of tired, sweaty, sunburned people squished around me, would answer in unison, “BAY!” It was a cheer that the stadium screens encouraged fans to participate in during the game, but it had more power when we decided to use it ourselves.
It was that sense of community that made me a football lifer.
With that, my #1 reason that I think you will enjoy football if you give it a chance:
Sense of community at games. (Though this can apply to a sports bar as well, particularly if many of the people at the bar are fans of the same team.)
