I remember it like it was yesterday. A girl never forgets her first love. That feeling I got when I looked into his greenish, blue eyes. Sweat slowly dripping down his perfectly sculpted face. It was as if he stared back into my eyes and said, “stay with me forever, I’ll never let you down.” It was ten years ago. And I have loved him more and more with every passing day. Tom Brady led the Patriots to a victory that day. And thus began my love affair with the greatest game on Earth.
After enduring this lockout for the past few months and finally seeing it end last week I’ve realized how important football is in my life. I have been a fan since I was 12 and I don’t know what I would do without it. I wish it could be football season all year round and I’ll never take this special thing for granted ever again. Like Cowboys legend Tom Landry said, “football is an incredible game. Sometimes its so incredible, its unbelievable.”
Football teaches work ethic, leadership, discipline, heart and the importance of teamwork. Vince Lombardi, one of the greatest coaches to ever coach the game said, “Leaders aren't born they are made. And they are made just like anything else, through hard work. And that's the price we'll have to pay to achieve that goal, or any goal.” Players, coaches, owners, everyone wanted to get back to work. There have been a lot of bad things said about the NFL recently. Things like, everyone is money hungry, greedy. Aren’t we all? I don’t think anyone in their right mind would pass up the opportunity to make more money. Don’t be fooled by all the blur, players, coaches, owners, everyone, loves this game.
Magical things happen on the field, things that don’t happen in real life. Football is the ultimate reality TV. The ultimate drama. Stories unfold in front of us every week. Whether it be team rivalries, players talking smack, Rex Ryan talking smack, football gives us what we want to see, even when they don’t try to. Amazing Hail Mary passes that are caught in the end zone with no time left. A player we love getting hit too hard and taken out of the game. An amazing run where defender after defender are knocked to the ground. An amazing catch that no one thinks is possible. That’s what it is, with football, the impossible is possible. Receivers seem to defy all laws of gravity when reaching for a ball. Quarterbacks manage to escape hunter after hunter(after all it is like the defense is trying to hunt and kill the QB) to get the ball down the field. Linebackers using their natural animal instinct to catch their prey and take them down. It really is like the Discovery Channel, Soap TV, and sports all rolled in to one messy, gritty, dirty package.
Football provides us all with an escape. Watching a Patriots game is like my own personal Disney World. My happiest place on Earth. When I’m not watching football, I’m thinking about it, reading about it, talking about it. I cannot get enough. It truly is like a drug. And I’m addicted. Everyone remembers where they were when Joe Namath actually won the Super Bowl he guaranteed he would, when Kevin Dyson scored a touchdown in what came to be known as “the music city miracle,” when Franco Harris made the “immaculate reception,” and David Tyree’s unbelievable grab in a sea of Patriot’s defenders to win Super Bowl 42. Football is filled with moments like this. Whether it be a heartbreaking loss, or an over time win, we stick with our team (unless it’s Miami’s fair-weather fans). We as fans, are emotionally invested. My happiness from September-January is based solely on how the Patriots play (For the most part, I’m happy. 14-2 last season).
So on Thursday, September 8th, when you’re watching the first game of the 2011-2012 season, between the Saints and the Packers, forget about the lockout, forget about the greed and the money, forget that you hate this team or that, and remember why you love this game. Remember all of those special moments. Remember that at the end of the day, you are a fan, a football fan.
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