i never cared about sports. i dated a boy in highschool who played, he was ..... something big (like, he was big), and he was number 34. he tackled people. that was the extent of my knowledge.

when i graduated from college, i went home, b/c the religion i was a member of did not allow really for me to move down to Birmingham, AL where the ex-schlurg lived, b/c i would be "unchaperoned" and it would be illicit, and sinful. so i moved back home to wait for our wedding date. (actually, come to think of it - to wait for my engagement ring, i graduated in May, and we got engaged in July - on July 4th, to be exact, after a Mets game, and the wedding was set for 12/17. that was the year 1994.)

the POINT IS. I lived with my parents. And my brother. He was in 10th grade. he played football.

He was a star.

I was his biggest fan.

My brother was a .... tight end. yes. that's what he was. i think. he played both offense and defense, and he ended up winning All New England for the number of Sacks, and he also was able to run with the ball, even when 3 little puny boys from the other team were trying frantically to hold onto him and make him STOP or, on a good day (for them), FALL!!

i learned the rules of the game. I yelled, I shouted. I did not miss a SINGLE game. My closest friend from college had moved from Virginia to Connecticut and had a nanny gig in a nearby town, and we would travel all over Connecticut to see his games. We were my brother's biggest fans.

Honestly, I adored my brother that year. I thought he was the best thing to grace the face of the earth. We hung out all the time. i would get up early and drive him to school before work, i would pick him up after practice, and Jasmine (my best friend from college) and I would even take him out, and if the waitress would serve him, we would get him drunk. that was bad. he was 15!!!!! 2 beers did it for him. and then he would ride home, with me and my sis in the front seat, and jasmine and my brother in the back seat .... they were sometimes flirting more than us two big sisters would appreciate. she was 21.

oh, those were the days.

Once. we were on the way to a football game. It was a saturday afternoon. for some reason, both Jasmine and another old friend of mine, G, were taking F-O-R-E-V-E-R to get ready. G didn't often come into town, so it was an unusual weekend. we finally left the house to get to the game (a home game, so no real travel), and Jasmine had to pee. we lived 6 minutes from the high school. what the fuck? i told her fine, we could stop at the gas station near the school. she said no. she was NOT about to pee in a GAS STATION. she wanted to pee in a restaurant. i fancy restaraunt. i was used to her prima donna ways, so i just relented. when we got there, she insisted i come with her (b/c i was bitchy, and people had a hard time saying no to my stony face). So we go in, and I walk into the restaurant to a "SURPRISE!!!" It was my wedding shower.

My wedding shower. On a Saturday. On a GAME DAY!!! I had to fight so hard to relax and enjoy all the Williams Sonoma gifts that were being handed to me. To be polite to my aunts and cousins and great-aunts, and friends and my father's co-workers. I kept checking the clock.

At around 4, my dad and his boss came in - they had gone to the game! I ran over, "did we win? how did dave do?"

3 sacks. I missed 3 sacks. I'm still slightly resentful.

but that experience - being #1 fan of my brother, the All New England 10th grade star - sort of drew me to football. then i married the ex-schlurg, and he was a HUGE fan. he would watch college and professional, whatever. When we first married, the deal was that I would watch football with him if and only IF he would play with my hair at the same time. That lasted until ..... 3 months before the wedding. (loser)

Ex-schlurg was a Raiders fan. the moved back to Oakland the year that we moved to Berkeley. nice timing. In one of our final years, I bought him tickets to a playoff game. I went with him. It was, honestly, fun. He had been to two other Raiders games in Oakland ... once with my dad (while Thing One was a baby, and it was about 100 degrees outside, and my mom and I stayed home and watched the English Patient, which I found to be the world's Most Boring Movie Ever.) and once with his step-dad.

I hate the Raiders. They suck. They are annoying. They make stupid mistakes, and get stupid penalties, and even when they seem in the first 1/2 like they're gonna win, they give it up in the second 1/2, and can't bring it back to save their lives.

I spent years dealing with my husband's depressive reaction to the Raider's losses. I also spent years where Football was Church, and when it was perfectly acceptable to have football on t.v., on mute, while baseball was on the radio, filling the tiny graduate family apartment with sound. i hated it. i hated that he had "no time" to do anything with the girls and I, but had time to watch every sporting event to grace the airways. I hated that i could not speak to him, b/c i was talking over any pre-game show that may grab his attention. i hated that when he 'had to work' i was forced to leave the house to give him peace, but the football games were welcome distractions. i hated that if he was "working" and i went in to talk to him, or to ask for some help with the Things, it was a great imposition, but that if he came out to check football scores, or baseball scores, and that "checking of scores" stretched into an hour of watching (which I could not interrupt), it was fine.

so for 5 years, i've been anti-sports.
But now Thing One has this job as writing sports articles for her class, and we live in Boston, and the Patriots are from here. All those years that ex-schlurg was a football moron -- i learned a lot.

So now that Thing one is a "sports writer" - i can actually teach her about football! which is weird, since i've considered myself to be adamantly "anti-sports" (all sports) since the ex-schlurg and i split up. although i don't think i've missed a super bowl. no other sport grabs me the same as football, though. i did not watch the world series this year, and i'm not really sure what basketball even IS.

posted by Zuska @ 8:48 PM

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