Editorial 2.12, December 2000, by Deirdre Helfferich A Rookie Player and the EFL Turkey Bowl Well, I finally did it. I participated in a team sport for the first time in my adult life--and not only that, in a football game, something I have never done before and have tried as hard as I could to avoid. You see, until now, football has always been, with one exception, the most boring, the most obnoxious, and the most politically incorrect game it has ever been my misfortune to encounter. And of course, one can’t but help encountering it in American society. I place it on a par with swollen beer bellies, loud stale belches, and crabs (not the ocean-going kind, either). Yuck. The only exception to my general distaste for the game was the end to one college game that I happened to see on TV (I was bored; anything was worth trying to get entertainment from): team A had the ball, but then the college band started to come onto the field for the final hurrah. The guy with the ball looked at the band and at the teams, now starting to walk off the field, and then at the clock. There were eight seconds left. He looked at the band, and started running like a bat out of hell for the goal line, dodging musicians, knocking them over. The teams suddenly realized that the game wasn’t finished. Musicians were frantically trying to get away from the football players, who, outweighing most of the band, charged through and over them in a desperate attempt to stop the inevitable. It was too late--the guy with the ball was almost there, nothing but a tuba player between him and winning the game. The tuba lost. It was glorious, the best game of any sort that I’d ever seen. I laughed and laughed. But other than this one hilarious example, football represents the worst of sexist, imperialist, and chauvinistic American patriotism to me. So why did I do it? Why did I actually go down to the community park on Thanksgiving Day with all the sports nuts and play a game I don’t even know the rules to? I suppose part of it was curiosity: what on earth would make these people go and play when it’s so cold the beer freezes? It did, too. Whatever the reason, I showed up. The Eagle was closed, so we had to forgo the pre-game calisthenics, but I stretched out. I listened to a couple of people tell me the rules, or some of the rules, anyway. So I played my first-ever touch football game, out in the snow with all the other sports-crazed lunatics. It was great. As the game progressed, I began to make sense of some of the terms they were using. A rush, for example, seemed to mean that a lot of people ran forward. Or sideways. A down seemed to mean somebody took a ball and went down on the ground with it after doing a lot of zigging and zagging. We had two balls, one to mark where the other one started at, and one that everybody tried to grab. A monster back was somebody who had to stand behind and between two other people near the scrimmage line (the imaginary line that Latte, Frank’s dog, always seemed to be sitting on) and catch the ball if it got thrown the wrong way. Or maybe it was catch the guy running at you. I kept getting told to play this position, so I guess I was doing it halfway right, or at least keeping out of trouble. I never did get the hang of the term play, which must be symbolic of something, but I’m not going to explore that one too deeply. Three of them made a down, I think. Sort of like pinochle or bridge. Points were scored, too, and I never did quite figure out all the details on that. I know our team lost--it was an upset, because the other team grabbed the ball right near their end zone, ran all the way to the other goal line, and then they all started hooting and hollering and throwing hats and mittens in the air and falling down and all that. Lots of moans from our side. As I’m sure you’ve gathered, I was pretty confused for much of the game. But it was fun. People kept showing up throughout the game, and the teams kept getting bigger. I was amazed at how fast people can run in bunny boots. Oliver Rogers and Harry Simpson were the shortest members on their respective teams, and did a good job of guarding each other. Eric Smith was so effective at breaking through our team’s line that Mark Simpson, our strategist, and Scott Geiger, our captain, kept having to assign two or three people, usually Bonecrusher Billington, Monique Musick, Jim Smith, and myself, to keep him busy. Bru, Duke, and Jesse, on the opposing team, were amazingly fast, but we had Hillary. Bru suffered our one injury midway through the first half when he got smacked in the kisser with the pigskin, which obviously hurt a lot, but he carried on through to halftime. Holly Dennis, Postal Martian, Rich, and lots of others played, too, but after a while I lost track. The next game is the Snow Bowl, another bit of holiday folderol, on New Year’s Day. This time, it’s bound to be not just nippy, but downright COLD. And I, lunatic that I have become, will be there with the rest of them. But don’t think that this means I’ll be glued to the TV for Monday Night Football--oh, no. Regular football still holds no attractions for me. But Ester Football League games? They’re in a class by themselves. | ||
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