Future For Football is an initiative of the National Football Foundation, created to highlight the lessons and values that football imparts. Get involved and sign up to play today by visiting Future for Football for resources, a League Locator tool, and much more.
Football has always been a soundtrack on the sidelines of my life, a familiar sound in the distance, tying together autumn rituals with family and friends. But the cheers and camaraderie of football got much closer last year, when my family finally got in the game. Football brought generations of our family together, like an incredible double pass.
When I was growing up in South Carolina, college football was the soundtrack for my Saturdays. There was often a game on television or the radio, the rhythm of the announcer’s voice the soothing sound of a Saturday afternoon. It sounded like fall, like back to school, like slanted sunlight in the windows, like coming inside from raking the yard. It sounded like home.
My Experience as a New Football Fan
In college, I attended University of South Carolina, an SEC school with a huge football program. But for my first years of school the sound of the games remained background music for me. I was the oddball student in the theatre department or library on a Saturday instead of at the stadium. It was not until I lived with the college mascot that I attended a college football game in person. I am forever grateful to Cocky the gamecock (my roommate!) for getting me off the periphery and on the sidelines of a football stadium. I instantly realized I had been missing out. The team ran onto the field to the roar of tens of thousands of fans. Cocky the Gamecock appeared in a cloud of smoke from a magic box. I screamed at the top of my lungs with my classmates, holding hands , united. It was unbridled football joy. We lost every game that season but we had the most fun.
Those exuberant college memories kept me interested in football when I moved to Washington, DC as a young adult. In a new city without friends, I met other alumni at on Saturdays to watch games. I dabbled in the NFL as a conversation starter with neighbors. Football was a way to meet people, connect with my community, a weekend diversion for a young person in a new city trying to make new friends.
My Football Mom Era
In the next decades, a mom of two sons, watching football remained a pleasant weekend diversion. But we became so busy on weekends with our own children’s activities, the familiar sounds of touchdown passes faded farther in the background.
That changed last year when one of my son’s activities became football. He started playing football at recess and had a lot of fun. We then signed up with a local flag football league and he joined a team. Weekends were again filled with the sounds of football. This time it was not the intonations of a commentator on TV, but the announcements of a ref from center field, the encouragement of parents on the sidelines, the sounds of my son cheering for a great catch.
It was not the electric atmosphere of a college stadium roaring with fans. But was it ever fun! We were building community around football again. We made new friends at games and joined for dinner after. My son packed his football in his school backpack to play at lunchtime at school. In his end of year teacher conference, it was listed as one of the ways he contributed to the school community.
Super Bowl Sunday with Family and Friends
The invisible string football had been weaving was evident on Super Bowl Sunday. My son invited his recess crew over to watch the game, the first party he hosted that was not for his birthday. They piled onto bean bags upstairs. The roars of teenage boys joined the soundtrack of the game. Meanwhile, friends joined us downstairs. I made friendship bracelets with my neighbor. We shared high-fives and cheered. And when the game finally ended, long after my children’s bedtime, we were running up and down the hallway like we had just received a winning pass. My son called his grandmother in Kansas City to celebrate. They texted about the game the next day. That familiar soundtrack of football was still playing but louder now. It sounded like community, like family, like a warm den of friends on a cold night. It sounded like home.
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