Football

A most mysterious game

I once was asked to do a speech for the Wisconsin Humanities Council. Ron Wolfe, general manager of the Green Bay Packers, was going to speak there, too. A lot of people were thrilled about this, including my mother, who loved football. You didn’t want to sit next to her when she was watching the Minnesota Vikings, her home team. When they got the ball, she yelled, GOGOGOGOGOGO!! and when they scored, she got so excited she pinched you.

I know nothing about football. I have never watched more than a few seconds of it. But in honor of the event I was about to do I decided to watch a game, to see if I could figure out what all the fuss was about. I undertook my mission in an airport bar, while waiting for a delayed flight. I couldn’t hear very well, but this is what I saw on the television:

There were a bunch of men on a big green field with the tidiest graffiti I’ve ever seen. They were wearing very unfashionable outfits. Really, someone should tell those guys that shoulder pads are strictly passé. And those helmets could be a bit more understated, plus what’s with the cage action on the front, do they keep parrots in there? Despite the shortcomings, however, the helmets are at least somewhat more becoming than the wedges of cheese. I saw on some fans’ heads . The men’s pants were way too short, and someone had put their names on the wrong side of their shirts. Also, some of them had forgotten to remove their dinner napkins – you could see them still tucked into the front of their britches.

From what I could tell, these ill-dressed men were fighting over a purse. A clutch model, though wider than most, with distinctive markings. Kind of like a Judith Lieber, with its whimsical approach, but much less glittery.

First, the men would line up, facing each other. None took advantage of this close contact to tell each other that their mascara was badly smeared. None shared any of their personal feelings. They just stared at each other. They were all bent down, except for one man who remained standing, and who reached under another man’s butt and then glanced furtively to the left and the right, apparently to see if anyone was looking. Which was very odd, because of course people were looking; there were massive crowds on either side of him, plus he was on national television.

Anyway, after the men lined up all nice and orderly, the purse got thrown, and all hell broke loose. The object seemed to be to get a hold of that purse at any cost —all the men on one team would go after the man on the other team who had it. Well, they would go after him as long as he was running. But the minute he fell, the minute he made himself vulnerable, they walked away. Some disgruntled women I know would say that this is how you could tell they were male.

From what I could gather, this is pretty much all that happens in a football game. Men dressed in macho drag go out onto a playground where they use a purse as an excuse to beat up on each other. Occasionally they break up into a little therapy groups, probably aimed at helping the men curve their violent natures. This proves to be useless, as they promptly return to the field to beat up on each other again.

Referees play their own game, which consists of blowing what must be a brand new whistle, so taken with it are they, and waving their arms around to land imaginary aircraft. Coaches must not make much money, because it appears that while they watch the game from the sidelines, they also work a second job: aggressive telemarketing . Hurt players lie on the field apparently near death, then abruptly jump up, and, rather than going home and getting into bed and having some nice chicken soup, they run right back out and get hurt again.

All in all, I still don’t get it. I would have to say that my best association with football remains the time I went to a high school game because I had a crush on the quarterback. While I moodily waited him for him to finish up whatever he was doing out there I took a walk and found fifty cents under the bleachers.