While I played my share of sports, playing any on an organized level ended mysteriously for me at the exact same time high school did. Football wasn’t a sport I ever played other than in an open field with my friends and no refs. I was too skinny back in high school to prevent from being snapped in half should I have played football. On a side note, being skinny is something that also mysteriously ended for me the same time as high school.
Despite my lack of personal experience with the sport, it seems these days that professional football has the power to completely alter my mood. I like watching sports in general, but every week, my mood goes as my favorite NFL franchise goes. When they win, I’m happy. I suggest we go out for dinner and I do extra nice little things for my wife and sons. When they lose, I’m crabby. I sulk around the house, wondering what the point is. On the bye week, I tend to feel lost and disoriented as if the compass by which I am to guide my actions for the next week has stopped working.
No other sport has this effect on me. I get excited about baseball and football and, more recently, hockey (I’m a newer convert to the sport after a good friend helped me learn a few of the rules and I saw that it wasn’t just guys skating around aimlessly looking for the little black thing on the ice. Did you know most of the players are actually able to see where that thing is the whole time?). When the playoffs come around especially, I’m in. Otherwise, I don’t normally take time away from family to watch sports. But during football season, I make it clear what I’ll be doing for about three hours each weekend.
“They’re playing on Monday Night Football this week, dear. You won’t see me after seven thirty. Anything you need done before then?”
I also insist that my sons keep out off the direct line of sight between me and my television during play. Commercials are fair game. They can run around then like they’re little savages from The Lord of the Flies. But once the game comes back on, I demand reverence. They are to stay out of my way, or sit and watch with me in silent awe. All questions will be held until the next commercial break, which is why I suggest they keep a pen and notebook handy.
This is really for their own good. I once became very angry with a friend because he had decided to take a phone call and step away from the baseball playoff game we were watching. While he was away from the action, things went horribly, epically wrong for our team. Despite knowing better, I was convinced at the time that his absence from the viewing area somehow tilted the cosmic scales and led to a series of fluke events on the field many miles away. I chastised him in a manner that causes me surprise every time he still willingly speaks to me to this day. I try to keep anything like this from happening again.
I suppose my intensity with each football game is due to the fact that there are so fewer games in a football season compared to every other professional sport. Each game has so much riding on it that your pulse is constantly going and your blood pressure rises. As a fan, you know full well that the ball your free safety just let sail over the middle for a touchdown could end up meaning the difference later in the year between a Wild Card spot and forced interest in the NBA regular season. I mean, why don’t they do something about that guy? Not only does he get burned on a regular basis, but when he does just so happen, by some miracle, to be in position, he’s got hands of stone and can’t make a tackle to save his life! Let’s get a player back there! GOD, HE SUCKS!!!
But I digress.
A few years back, my team made it to the Super Bowl, only to lose. It destroyed me. When the game clock ticked down to zero in the fourth quarter, I stood up silently in my custom jersey with my own last name on the back, and walked slowly up the stairs. “I’m sorry, babe,” my wife called behind me and received no answer as I made my way to our bed and curled up in the fetal position for several days. I’m not sure what snapped me out of it, but I’m fairly certain my wife took care of me during my crippling sports induced depression, watching over me like WALL-E did EVE (that scene was so moving sniff, sniff).
The following season, a good friend of mine from college saw his team make it to the big dance. When speaking with him on the phone, I forewarned, “If they lose, you will wish they had never made it in the first place.” His team lost and his whereabouts are unknown to this day.
Of course I want my team to do well, but if they aren’t going to win it all, it’s easier on my psyche if they just don’t even make the playoffs. January and February will see my hands sweat less, I won’t have that nagging facial tick and I’ll see daily events for the value that they really possess instead of perceiving them as mere annoyances that distract my attention away from the constant focus on the impending playoff match-up necessary to transfer good karma my team’s way.
So, while I thoroughly enjoy football season, part of me is ready to get it over with even though we’re only three weeks in. My team played last night, so I refused to write a blog post yesterday in order to concentrate properly. Had they lost, you may not have seen another post until they redeemed themselves with a win.
So, for all those adoring fans of Transformer Generation Dad, I urge you, if you want to see posts here regularly, repeat these two words as often as you can over the next few months. Say it with me now:
“Go Bears!”
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