Football’s great, but not for everyone

I didn’t watch Super Bowl XLIII.

I didn’t watch XLII, either. In fact, I’ve never watched one of these oblate spheroid spectaculars in its entirety; not even the infamous wardrobe malfunction special.

Why?

I assure you it’s neither my cultural background nor the fact that I, a lifetime Republican, voted as a Democrat in the last election.

The truth is I was a grade-A klutz and have been practically since birth. When I was growing up I was usually the last one chosen for sports teams, if at all. No one wanted the squinty, right-handed kid, even for a simple game of catch.

How bad was I? If you’re right-handed, cover your right eye and go out and play catch with your kids. If you’re left-handed, cover your left eye and have your kids play catch with you. In either case, it’s not impossible; but no one will describe the results as a state of gracefulness, let alone as poetry in motion. But please, if you try this at home, talk with your significant other first, then check applicable local laws and your insurance policies, and be absolutely sure to use a very soft object and stay well away from anything breakable.

For middle school the district took a hundred or so of us kids and overflowed us to an elementary school. Perhaps that’s why they chose “little” boys – and I’m not kidding when I say little. How else could it be that yours truly ended up being one of the biggest kids in class?

I’m not a big guy. While both of my brothers soar past six feet, I never cleared it; which is why I refer to myself as the runt of the litter. Years ago I was in The Crescent looking for dress shirts and couldn’t find any in size small. When I asked the men’s department clerk if they had them somewhere else, she suggested I “try the boy’s department.” She was serious!

It’s really unfair, you know. There are big and tall specialty stores for those kinds of guys, but no skinny and small stores for guys like me.

Anyway, my eighth-grade coach actually let me play football, not because I knew how to play – ’cause I didn’t and still don’t – but because I was “big.” The task he gave me was simple: take out the guy carrying the ball – unless it was a teammate. I didn’t know anything about pass plays or double coverage or shotgun formations. On each down I just tried to find and stop the guy with the ball, but that didn’t happen very often.

I wore glasses even then, but I wouldn’t wear them during games because I didn’t want to get a broken nose and I didn’t want to get killed by my dad if I broke them, and mom didn’t want me playing football anyway. So you can imagine the impact this had on my less-than-stellar athletic skills and I can only imagine what the adults who watched were thinking. I’m sure it was unprintable.

But I was in hog heaven. I thought it was great to be on a team – any team.

All dreams must end, however, and mine started crumbling the first day of my freshman year. Suddenly there were all these giants wearing letterman’s jackets and beards wandering around school like they owned the place but, somehow, instead of growing that year, I seemed to shrink. Even today I’m not much bigger than I was in eighth grade, except around the middle.

I looked around that day and realized that my athletic career was coming to an end.

Just like that.

So these days I don’t watch America’s greatest spectacle, unless you think watching presidential debates or impeachment proceedings is as thrilling as watching an edge-of-your-seat athletic contest. Come to think of it, my grasp of the gridiron is not much better than my grasp of politics; maybe worse.

But despite my childhood disappointments I’m alright with America’s love affair with football. It plays an important role in our culture, after all.

It’s just not for everyone, especially vision-impaired, right-handed little guys like me.