my struggle with football

I don't know what it is, but I think I was denied the football part of the male genome.

All my life I have had little or no interest in football (or any other sport for that matter--unless it's a live game...and there's beer). I don't know any player's stats or life history. I don't keep track of how many touch-down passes they've made. I have nothing to contribute when it comes to sports. Part of me really struggles with that, but part of me doesn't.

It's well known that the common denominator amongst men is sports. They talk about offense, deffense, how Joe-Basketball should play the game. I just don't get it. But it's not my fault. Like I said, I was denied that gene at birth. I did play T-Ball for two seasons when I was little. But I have to admit that the part I looked forward to the most was the snacks at the end of the game. Will it be Little Debbie today? I wonder what they have for drinks. I hope it's grape cool-aid.

My dad tried, but to no avail I landed and found myself in the theater.

I do hate that for my dad. He loves to watch football, but I just have a hard time sitting there infront of the TV when a game is on. For me, it's like watching TV in Albanian. I have no idea what they're saying. Something gets lost in translation.

Last year all the guys at the church I work at created their own fantasy football league. By peer pressure and the natural tendency to just "be one of the guys" (it seems I'm always "one of the girls"...that's a post for another day) I created a team. I had no idea who was who, or what they did. I didn't know how many line backers I needed on my team, or how many quarterbacks. I DID, though, have the best team name: The Nashvegas Bloggers. (yeah, baby!) I never watched a game to see how my guys were doing. I didn't do a thing. All the guys would tell me what to do; who to trade and I just didn't get it. I had no clue what I was doing. I tried to hide my ignorance of football, but it didn't last long. I was "outed" by the end of the season.

Does not liking sports make me any less of a man? No. It just means that I don't like sports. That's all. I hate that a man's masculinity (by society's definition) is determined by how much he likes sports.

My wife can attest that despite my lack of interest in football, I am still very much a man ;-)