Today: Midget Football

The Super Bowl: I’d rather not watch, have no vested interest in the outcome, think the sport mere pot-boiling entertainment. The shouting announcers, the grunting roughnecks, that weird cyborg head. The calls make it such an easy game to fix.

But I admit I’ll not be able to look away. Yes, the game will be on in my home. Yes, I’ll be downstairs eating nachos in front of the tube.

It will be the most football I watch all season, Thanksgiving included. We watched some of the game two weeks ago where the favored team came from way behind to win, and I remember feeling disappointed even though the game meant nothing to me, personally. I just like an underdog.

That’s how much I’ve been following football. I can hardly remember the team names anymore.

Football has been ruined for me for a long time. I remember really loving the idea of the Steelers as a kid because a cool kid named Steve or Mike was a Steelers fan and you got to wear a black jacket with yellow piping. Steelers fans were on the side of tough-sounding guys, like it was stealers instead of robbers. Like being an outlaw. The only team in football that might have given the Steelers a run for toughness was the Raiders, but they were from Oakland, not nearly as tough as being from a place called Pittsburgh.

Then I went for the Redskins, and that was way more real because my father grew up in the DC area and the Redskins had a legendary team with John Riggins and Joe Theismann and the big line calling itself the Hogs. But two really awful things happened after that.

The first really awful thing was I found out my grandfather had started supporting the Cowboys, the fucking Dallas Cowboys, and it felt like such a betrayal from a person I really admired. It was bad alright, but then I started living outside the U.S. and didn’t watch football anymore, anyway. So I could forgive grandpa and let him enjoy watching Troy Aikman who, apparently, grandma considered a heartthrob. They had a healthy marriage, grandma and grandpa.

Then the next really awful thing happened including the most hated team owner in NFL history Dan Snyder and this crazy change in name to the Washington Commanders. It’s such a dumb name! Nobody here can say it without groaning! In my house, we say they should change the name to The Cherry Blossoms, really make them sound like the pack of weenies-in-tights they really are.

It reminds me how much has changed in my life related to football. I used to love it, used to play the sport as a middle-schooler and high school freshman. Driving to the game in the family car one Sunday, I spotted a sign among the colorful fall countryside that said, “Today, Midget Football!” I said, “Cool, dad! Can we go?”

He gave me a look in the rearview mirror, part shame at my stupidity, part humored by my innocence. I think he settled on a look that said, Is that my child or the dogshit I just stepped in?

“Where do you think we’re going, son?”

Then there was the first-ever Super Bowl party I was invited to. Same time of life, eighth grade, Freshman year. I remember how irked I was that nobody was there to watch the game. Nobody seemed to care about the football at all. They wanted to talk over the announcers and stand in front of the tv while I tried to see every play. The big day over there might as well have been called the supper bowl.

Now, today, I figure I’ll be that guy, pass the nachos. I’m far more interested in having my family gather around for a few hours of mass-entertainment, taking note of their observations and commentary. I can’t wait to hear what they have to say. It’ll be our own brand of nonsense and nobody will feel good or bad about who wins or loses.

It’s just a game. A really big game.