Football used to matter to me. I think it’s because I was born into a family that deeply loved the Washington Redskins.* Maybe it’s because the Super Bowl and I were both born in the same year.
I grew up adjacent to a lot of football-game-watching. At home with my dad, me laying on the floor in front of the tv while my dad yelled at the refs/players- one of those giant wood-encased televisions that sat on the floor too. At my grandparent’s house, while my dad, uncle and grandpa also yelled at the tv and I ran around with my siblings and cousins. Or read my Nancy Drew books.
When I was in middle school I went through a phase where I read and pretty much memorized the Sunday paper NFL stats and read all the articles about the teams and the games. This seems so bizarre to me today. I never did anything even remotely like that ever again - not even when our beloved Spurs were on one of their runs. I learned so much useless information about so many football people. Absolutely no other girl my age who I knew at the time knew who Dick Vermeil was, for example, but I did. I knew so much about this guy. And Don Shula. And Joe Theismann etc. Lol. I was also so fascinated about the Dolphins’ undefeated 1972 season - maybe because they beat the Redskins in the Super Bowl that year. I’m actually still pretty impressed by that, and I think they’re still the only team to ever do it. Maybe. I haven’t been paying attention for a while now.
My memories of childhood football watching are mostly from when we lived in Florida and Texas in the 70’s & 80’s, but my family originally came from Maryland- where they apparently developed a deep and abiding loyalty to the Washington DC team that never wavered when they moved south and then west. Not even when they moved to San Antonio, Texas.
But then I grew up and married a Cowboys fan. This made Thanksgiving awkward, every single year. And one of the things I did - not consciously at the time- was slowly care less and less about football. When your giant family is rooting for one team, and your husband rooting for the other team, you will always win, and always lose.
But that took a while. In my early years of marriage, football still mattered to me. I remember being pregnant living in Sacramento for the 1988 Super Bowl which was in San Diego and how much I wished we could have gone to see the Redskins win that bowl! I remember when I got to see a Redskins game in the stadium! I remember a year my friend Darryl taped the superbowl and sent it to us on a VHS tape when we were living in England (“do not tell me who won, I’ve got a tape to watch…”).
But the death knell of my love of football really came on strong when we moved back to San Antonio (after being away for 12 years) -in 1998. I went to my first Spurs basketball game very soon after moving home, and I remember thinking how much more exciting, interesting, gripping and electric! basketball was than football. And the players, springing all over the court - I loved it! Something about watching David, Tim, Manu, Tony and all the rest was just so much more satisfying than all those heavy footballers piling on top of each other yard after yard after yard getting concussions and brain damage. Watching a basketball game was like watching the best football passing plays and so much more.
And the rest is history. 1999 was the *asterick season the Spurs won their first Championship and then decades of wins and losses, joy and despair, and 5 championships followed. Go Spurs Go became our entire united family’s mantra. My daughters became junior silver dancers and did the toy scrambles (so fun and cool). And so I didn’t have any more time, really, for football. Keeping up with the Spurs was more than enough- what with everything else I had going on, family, work and life.
I was compelled to write this because I’m not watching the superbowl today. I was invited to watch, by several groups of friends, but said no- mostly because it’s been a crazy couple of weeks traveling, so I needed some quiet down time - but also because I haven’t watched one game, all season long. I’m barely aware of some Taylor Swift/football player romance but I couldn’t tell you any details. I think there’s a Texas A&M college quarterback who’s playing for Kansas City…maybe. I’ll watch the ads tomorrow - which btw I don’t remember ever being a thing when I was a kid but now seem to be the main thing? Along with increasingly theatrical halftime shows that I also will watch in short clips tomorrow and over the next week. But the only football I watch these days happens when I go to a sports bar to eat with friends and there are 17 TVs, some with football game on.
The Spurs aren’t doing so well these days. Kind of like when I was in high school in the 80’s (How bout them Spurs? we snarky high-schoolers would ask jokingly back in the day), but I’d still rather watch a basketball game than a football game any day. The fluidity and grace, like dancers in a ballet, as the players navigate the court, executing precise movements, passes, and shots with beautiful rhythm and coordination. Nothing like it. #chefskiss
But honestly also, I don’t have tv- or the Super Bowl would probably be on in my house. 😉
*renamed the Commanders at some point but I use the name they had at the time because it feels contrived and historically inaccurate to do otherwise
