But personally when it comes to football, I am a huge fan. That is an understatement really. I have a box full of playbooks. Seriously. I've never coached or played the game in real life, and yet I still have thousands of plays in a box. Don't remember why, but I treasure having them.
The strange thing about my love of the game is that I am not even bound by allegiances to a particular team, division, conference or league. I love football with a terminal and non-specific intensity. And while my distaste for baseball and basketball is almost legendary now, my affection for football of both the NFL and NCAA variety is indeed legendary. Everything that George Carlin said about football vs. baseball is the perfect examination of why I love the game.
I love the rivalries, the personalities, the offensive and defensive formations, and I get a kick out of seeing the improbable, the unbelievable way things go down on the field. I watch heart of Walter Payton and LaDanian Tomlinson with awe, the spring-loaded hips of Barry Sanders with amazement and the motormouth of Chad Johnson with amusement.
The Immaculate Reception. The Holy Roller. The Miracle in the Meadowlands. The Hail Mary. The Drive. All of these moments in sporting history are part of my memory.
And I will watch any game I find. An ESPN classics repeat of the 1982 Stanford-Cal game? I'm there. A preseason match between the Houston Texans vs. Oakland Raiders? Where do I sign up? If I found a NCAA Division III game somewhere deep on the cable dial, I would watch it (Go Poets). I've even watched World League/NFL Europe games when it was still a viable entity.
But my favorite thing to find on the tube is something that NFL Films has put together. The combination of symphonic music and slow motion action shots just can't be beat really.
If I am going to be fair, I have to admit that I am largely disappointed by the games that a lot of the major college teams schedule at the beginning of the season. Of course, every once in a while something extraordinary happens like 1AA champion Appalachian State taking out #5 Michigan this weekend just reinvigorated my love of the game as a whole(and I give App. St. all the credit in that win... saying that Michigan overlooked them or isn't the team the media made them out to be is denigrating their opponent's effort and skill), but because the impossible can happen on any given Saturday or Sunday, it makes every game a thing of magical beauty.
But I will not watch the CFL... that is going a little too far. I'm Canadian, and I have to draw the line at that. 110 yards... why, why?
So, I'm I ready for some football. Damn Right!
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