... become interested in football, a sweet lady asked me. I had to think about that one. I couldn't really remember a time when I wasn't. We have a bit of a history, football and I, but not like you'd think, I'm sure.
I remember the TV in the family room of the house I lived in when I was very little. Shall I take you back? It wasn't a big TV, maybe 20"? I don't know. It had 2 dials, one for VHF and one for UHF. Cable didn't exist then, so it had rabbit ears. There was no remote, so if you wanted to change the channel or volume, you had to get up to do it. I watched the Apollo Moon Landing on that TV. I watched the '72 Olympics in Munich when the Israelis were killed. I watched the Viet Nam vets come home, and kiss the ground when they stepped off the plane. I watched Nixon resign on that TV. And, among assorted episodes of The Monkees, The Brady Bunch, Partridge Family and the Road Runner, I watched ABC's Wide World of Sports. Every weekend, I'd wince seeing that skier tumble down the hill while the narrator said, "... and the agony of defeat!" My father enjoyed sports and at the time, I was a daddy's girl. He wasn't one to shout at the TV or anything - he'd just sit quietly and watch, beer in hand. But I wasn't the favorite and knew it, and at the time, I cared so I was eager to please. For a time, I liked baseball, until '73 when the owner of the A's started getting rid of the star players like Vida Blue. There was racing, but that got boring. Golf was a yawn, even the announcers whispered. But football ... now there was something exciting!
I asked my father once why we liked the Raiders. He explained to me that he grew up close to Oakland. Plus, he'd gone to high school with the coach. You may have heard of him: his name is Madden. They weren't the same year or best buds, nothing like that, but they could nod to each other in the halls - that sort of thing. So, somehow that made the Raiders, the local team, really personal. I also discovered that one of the girls in my school, a year ahead of me, was the daughter of a Raider's player, although he'd died in '70, before I met her.
I was mesmerized by Kenny "The Snake" Stabler, and kicker Ray Guy. I remember a guy they called "Casper the Ghost" because he ran so fast you couldn't see him. The Raiders were bad, which at the time meant "awesome." They were also the local team, along with the 49ers, but the black and silver of the Raiders seemed much more "bad" to me than the red and gold of the San Francisco team. So being local, and before cable, those were the only teams you could watch on a regular basis, except for the teams that came to town. That's why Monday Night Football was so great - you got a chance to see non-local teams play other non-local teams. I remember a guy they called "Sweetness" because it was so sweet to see him run. And some guy named Namath. Oh, and another guy named Bradshaw, whom I hated because he was the QB for the Steelers, and I hated the "Steel-Curtain" Steelers. I also hated the Denver "Orange Crush" Broncos. Both those teams could make life hell for a Raiders fan.
Because I was so eager to please in those days, I asked my father a lot of questions about football. I learned what a down was, and I learned how to read some of the ref's calls. Not much, I know, but I felt more knowledgeable than other girls I knew. I leaned the names of all 20+ teams in the league and made a game of it with my father. He'd call out either a team name or a city, and I'd respond with the corresponding city or team. "Baltimore?" "Colts!" I'd answer. "Patriots?" "Boston!" I'd reply. I knew them all - the Houston Oilers, St. Louis Cardinals, the LA Rams. At the time, Seattle, Tampa Bay, Jacksonville, Tennessee, Arizona, and Carolina did not have teams. There were only 4 teams west of the Rockies, and they were all in California. And there were only 14 games in a season. And games didn't get "rained out" like sissy baseball games did. Football was a mud and guts affair; like the Post Office but better, it delivered whether it was raining, snowing, sleeting, foggy, sunny, hot, cold, daytime, AND nighttime.
Another game my father and I played was, "Who do you think is going to win in this game?" He'd name 2 teams, and I'd pick one.
Eventually I left California, not by choice. I ended up in the Midwest, where the law said you had to be a Bears fan. The only time I got to see the Raiders play was when they played against the Bears. Eventually, being a teenaged girl, and also because of the home life I had, sitting around on a Sunday afternoon to watch football just wasn't much of an option. Ultimately, those teen years and that home life changed, and the Bears went to the Superbowl. One lived in fear of being arrested if one wasn't a Bears fan, so few knew of the autographed picture of Stabler I had on my wall, along with a pennant from Superbowl XI, a year the Raiders won. The Raiders had also left Oakland, a move that left a bitter taste in the mouths of many fans. Like my father's. Not mine though. The Raiders hadn't been a "local" team for me for years, what did I care where they went? They were still the Raiders to me, but even within my own family, where being a Raiders fan had been something that we just were, I was an outcast. It was almost like waking up one day and discovering you're a different gender or a different race. And what had happened to loyalty? Win, lose, or draw, isn't your team supposed to be your team? I was vile by association with the now hated Raiders. Outcast! I didn't care. I took the "teasing," the ridicule, the insults from family and then-in-laws alike. I was the only one I knew who was a Raiders fan, and that didn't change until 2003. What is it about a person's favorite team that makes others think they can be insulted? Upon learning that I was a Raiders fan, a relative (who had only recently become a relative through marriage) spat out, "Oh! I HATE Raider fans! They're such assholes!" I didn't even get a "present company excluded of course!" I never was sure if the insult was intended or not. Said relative even said to me once, "You only like the Raiders because I HATE them!" Now, considering that I had only recently met the person but had been a Raiders fan for over 30 years at that time, I was more than a little bewildered.
Subsequent to 2002 however, life changed drastically for me, and for various reasons, my team allegiance seemed necessary to change also. (I posted in more detail about that here and here. Same post, different blog sites) I realized my husband felt the same way about his team, and we looked at each other and knew we needed our own team. We finally decided on the Patriots; for many reasons, not the least of which was the way they came out onto the field as a team and not as individual players. One thing I have found, it's really nice to be married to someone who is a fan of the same team you are. :) Let me tell you, we are dorky enough to have actually considered getting this to wear as our wedding bands! I was never as rabid about the Raiders as I am about the Patriots, possibly because I live with another fan who's just as rabid, lol. Like the NFLshop.com commercials, I find myself frequently seeing a Patriots item and stating, "I WANT THAT!" Football is a much bigger part of my life now, and that is because I am married to a football fan. He knows way more about the game than I do, and that makes it fun to watch because if I have a question about anything, I have a live in semi-expert available to give me his undivided attention and explain it to me. This is what we do on Sunday afternoons during football season - we watch the games. Occasionally I make treats. We talk about the games, the players, the announcers, the refs, the calls ... other couples bowl I suppose - we watch football.
One thing that surprises me however is how few female fans there are. Football is just too sexy a sport not to be appreciated more by women. There is just so much testosterone oozing off the football fields I'm amazed there aren't scads of women following the pheromone trails. Do you hear me ladies? This is not just a man's sport! You don't have to have a clue what a down is to appreciate 6-pack abs and buns of steel on handsome young men grunting on the field. You don't need to know which teams are playing or what a goalpost is to enjoy the male physique in it's highest form. Well ... okay, 2nd highest. ;) Football is a spectator sport ladies, so don't be afraid to spectate! The guys are showing off! Enjoy the view!
Other times the game is like a brilliantly executed dance - watch a player try to stay in-bounds when there are opposing players trying to knock him out. A couple of weeks ago, I watched a guy do just that - he literally tip-toed his way down the line, running and holding the ball, with about 6 guys trying to force him out of bounds. He twisted and turned, spun around, and kept running. It was awesome!
As a fan, you appreciate the talent, skill, and determination players have, whether they're on your team or not. And as a fan, you never, NEVER cheer when a player from an opposing team goes down. EVER. I remember back in '78 I believe, when during a Patriots/Raiders game, a man got hurt. I was a Raider fan back then. The name of the hurt player was Darryl Stingley. He played for the Patriots. I never forgot that play, the horror I felt. The shame I felt that Raiders fans in the stands cheered. I may be mistaken that the station airing the game aired it again so fans who missed it the first time could see the hit once more. That's how it is in my memory, but I'm willing to allow it may have been nothing more than extra news coverage. Regardless, not just as a fan of the sport, but as a human being, it's so wrong to cheer when another is hurt. To cheer when an opposing player goes down because it makes you think your team has a better chance to win, is despicable. You know who you are and you ought to be ashamed.
I love football. I still may not understand it in its entirety - the play calls, stuff like that - and I probably never will because I'm not a player, but I can still love the sport for its beauty. It's like a chess match with living pieces. It has always been a part of my life, and always will be. I may never be a mom who makes soup commercials for her son's winning Superbowl team, but I will always feel that breathless awe when a player does something amazing, when a team does something stunning, when a season turns out to be incredible. Football is like real life to me - grit, determination, and strategy with a little bit of magic dust thrown in.
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