Tuesday, September 08, 2009

Go 'Canes!


I'm not exactly what you would call the typical sports fan. I don't really follow them much and I don't even know much about the rule technicalities. As a child, I only watched football because my brother was obsessed. Back then it was the heyday of the San Francisco 49ers and Joe Montana. I remember names like Drew Bledsoe and Jerry Rice and Dan Marino was still the Dolphins' main man. As I got older, I lost my interest in the game and the only games I watched were the ones my brother played at the quarterback for the G. Holmes Braddock Senior High Bull Dogs. When my brother got injured and was no longer able to play, we both kind of lost much of any interest in football. I've basically only watched the Super Bowl most years for the last decade (and mostly for the commercials, half-time show, and booze.) My boyfriend has become more of a fan in the last year or so and i've been watching more games (although it takes a lot for me to actually leave the comfort of the internet to watch one.) While in the back of my head I think - god, these guys get paid ridiculous amounts for doing bullshit while the rest of us waste our times worshipping their teams, I can see how it can be fun to get caught up in this.

And so, it's with a bit of humility that I confess I am slightly newfound college football convert. I've never watched a college game (except maybe bits and pieces of Notre Dame games when I was younger.) Tonight, though, was different. I go to the University of Miami now and apparently being in to football is all the rage. While I don't exactly see myself becoming a face painter and tailgating every single game, it was actually fun to support my school's team. I was supposed to go to my cousins' place but was unable to so I had to settle for watching it on my TV's ESPN. The game was incredibly intense and I know I'm fooling myself in to thinking every game will be this good. I also think I watched because some of my friends were giving me shit about having the ever-dreaded "school spirit." And if there was ever a game to make a convert out of someone, it was this one! It was back and forth the entire game, and the last 2 minutes literally spread out in to a nail biting, heart-attack inducing about extra half hour or so. Even the final play was questions, trying to figure out if FSU had made a final touchdown (they hadn't.) It was... well... awesome! So does this mean that i'll be joining the news team at the radio station and take part in the homecoming parade? Ehhhh probably not. But at least for a few minutes, I was pretty damn proud of my over-priced university. Go UM! Go 'Canes!

2 comments:

Allie said...

While I do think that football players and most athletes are probably overpaid, I think saying that what they do is bullshit isn't accurate. As someone who goes to the gym and very actively tries to improve their strength, I really admire the athleticism involved in professional sports. It takes a huge amount of discipline to make it to that level. Those guys train for hours and hours a day, doing physical things that people like you and I will probably never be able to do. And they often end up with serious injuries as a result too. You probably don't think that someone who trains for the Olympics is getting paid to do bullshit, so I don't think it's much different for pro athletes either. Okay, that's the end of my tangent. Nothing personal, just throwing in my two cents :)

(She got Herself up) Killingly said...

lol well, in my opinion it's bullshit in the grand scheme of things. i never said it wasn't hard to do and doesn't require a lot of training, i totally recognize that. i could see it in my brother and his training just for HS football alone so i cant imagine the kind of shit these guys have to put their bodies through. but as far as something productive for humanity as a whole, i feel that anyones time would be better spent in other arenas (same thing goes for the olympics, who are actually especially on my shitlist at the moment regarding a recent case on gender testing among other things.) opinions aren't accurate or unaccurate, just opinions. and i'm sure my time would be better spent outside of the realm of blogging too, and i think that's also bullshit lol. more to the point, i said it was bullshit because they get paid absurd amounts and get away with a lot of things that normal peoeple might not with much smaller penalties (michael vick got his because they wanted to make it an "example", but some guys do other things - ive heard of cases where players have been involved in domestic abuse, rape cases, even recently one guy who ran over another man with his case because he was DUI. and while i strongly feel he should be in jail for a long time, he just gets penalized for a little while via suspension from the nfl for a year... possibly some kind of fine... and basically it. no real long jail sentence. it seems absurd to me that these are people's idols and heroes when the real heroes who are out in the world making a difference and changing things and helping others basically get ignored. it has nothing to do with physical merit and everything to do with their ridiculous paychecks (same shit goes for most celebrities though honestly. but this blog was about football lol)