I have a weird and unorthodox obsession with football. I judge girls more on whether or not they can throw a spiral than their clothing or music choices. I honestly couldn’t name five players on my home NFL team, The Giants. I wish I did but I don’t wish it quite enough to actually memorize it.
Football is the escape that everyone wished they had. So many people don’t understand value of 300-pound men crashing into each other at their maximum speeds. It’s not the violence that people are attracted to and it’s not the memory of the violence with which they walk away. The overflowing ecstasy when their team scores a touchdown is what they walk away with. Football is unique in that it can be used to both enrich existing family connections, and create family-like connections that didn’t exist. Football is a language that only Americans speak. Football is a teaching tool. Football has good guys and bad guys, and of course the bad guys who are great players. Football provides competition, passion, and excitement in a realm that doesn’t actually exist or effect anyone’s life.
General admiration of sports knowledge definitely stems from my family. All of the men on my mother’s side find a quiet table, room, or grill to gather around and ask the questions they’ve been collecting in their minds for months. The encyclopedic knowledge of this motley crew of mortgage salesman, attorney, contractor, and fresh face on the Wall Street scene astonishes me. I can think of no body of knowledge of my own that could ever compare to their knowledge of sports. I always listen in and even ask them to repeat answers to try to remember and impress others but it never sticks. This leads me to believe that it is not the knowledge that I desire, but rather the camaraderie and passion that they feel while sharing all of this useless knowledge.
The major event that could have halted my love for football culture was the death of my close friend Ryne Dougherty. Early in my senior year I developed a close friendship with a few boys from my Italian class. One of them, Ryne, was a mediocre athlete and a mediocre student. What was not mediocre about Ryne, however, was his passion for football. Reading the high school gym log during his football career reveals an overwhelming repetition of loopy scribbles of Ryne Dougherty’s name. His constant status on instant messenger was “I luv football” (don’t worry, I made fun of his spelling of love every opportunity I had). Ryne’s passion and obsession with the game was, tragically, his fatal flaw. Ryne, like most high school athletes made the idiotic choice to play injured. Ryne chose to play through concussion symptoms. Ryne’s brain hemorrhaged after a simple tackle.
I see no value in walking through the trauma of visiting Ryne in the hospital, his candle light vigil, and his funeral that are all tattooed in my memory. There was, in those sickly depressing days that followed Ryne’s injury and death, a football game that made me the happiest I’ve ever been in my entire life. The day after the vigil just days after Ryne was taken off life support, Montclair High School had to somehow find the strength to get back on the field. Hundreds of Montclair fans drove the 45 minutes to Ridgewood for the game. This was a needed and guilt-free distraction for everyone wearing blue. Play after play had us screaming, jumping, and holding our breaths. The game went into over time, and because of rules that I don’t understand, we had just seconds to score to win the game. Our kicker, Arman Walia, missed a kick earlier in the game and made us legitimately worried about putting him in again for such an important kick. It felt like slow motion, but Arman kicked and the ball soared over and between the field goal bars at the same rate as would the crowd’s hearts and bodies rose to their feet. We rushed the field with the most pure joy we’d ever felt, like a balloon that’s was not only inflated, but released from a tight grip. Football did that. Football had ripped our hearts to shreds, and then put them back together. That kind of power is not just a game.
A year later I dropped my bags in Dana Dormitory room 111. My excitement and nervousness had manifested as a tense smile and tenser shoulders. As I was meticulously hanging posters and unpacking cardigans, two huge students walked in and introduced themselves. Lamont lived on the other side of the hall and Nick informed us he didn’t live in Dana but he might as well. A few minutes later another towering young man walked in and introduced himself as Connor, “we’re good guys,” he said, “we might be a little loud but we’re good guys.” And with that a final four obscenely muscular boys walked past my room and into their 5-man suite. “This is Matt, Roger, Dan, and Quinny,” Connor explained as they each awkwardly waved. “Are you all wrestlers?” my Mom asked. “No. Football players.” The tightness in my shoulders melted away and my smile became genuine (though I imagine the realization that I would be living within ten feet of senior football players had the opposite effect on the rest of my family). Even a semester later, walking into their room, dodging beer cans, solo cups, and dried barbecue sauce to sit on their blue plush couch and just watching TV makes me giddy. Their weird traditions and stories, crayons, the gold jersey, The Spice Girls, and pumpkin seeds give me the comfort of getting into my own bed after a month away from home.
On Christmas Eve my family sat around the many trays of cheese and crackers and chocolate chip cookies. As the men started to gather ‘round my uncle Eric asked the table who are the 10 Division One football teams from Texas? My sister, instantly realizing she had no interest and nothing to add turned her back and started catching up with my aunt. I didn’t have anything to add either but I sat through the whole conversation. I sat there the whole time not memorizing the answers, but just watching their joy of flipping through pages of memory.
I don’t play fantasy football, I can’t tell you the Giants’ record, and I definitely do not know what all the positions are. But football means good things. Football means drunk, laughing uncles. Football means delicious Super Bowl food. A shocking amount of money is poured into the game of football because football is an accessible escape. From a couch, an office chair, or a dinner table, the distraction of home teams, interceptions, and call challenges is universally comforting to football fans. Maybe one day I’ll actually know enough to publicly brag about my love for football, but for now, at least I can throw a spiral.
