Go, um, team! Score a...goal?
I had to sing the National Anthem with Treblemakers (girls acapella) at the homecoming game last night. And my sister's in pep band, and my dad has been looking for an excuse to go to these games since my older brother's freshman year, so basically I had no choice but to stay the entire time. So I had plenty of time to muse about it and get all over-philosophical, and now you guys have to listen to me. Well, not really. I guess you could leave right now and never return, and you wouldn't have to listen to me at all ever again. But hopefully it won't come to that.
Football. I still don't really understand the game itself. Here's what I've gathered from my experience: a bunch of guys in huge shoulder pads and tight leggings fight over an oddly shaped ball, trying to get it to their end of the field. And then sometimes one of them has to kick the ball all the way across the field and try to get it through those big white forky-things. Goalposts? Goalposts. I guess there probably isn't too much more, but as soon as my dad started trying to comment on the game, I got lost. Also, the scoring's pretty wonky, because people kept cheering, but they didn't have any points for like half the game, and then suddenly they jumped up into the teens.
The funny thing is, there's about ten or fifteen guys per team who basically play the entire time, which is what you see on TV, right? But what they don't show is that there's like fifty other guys on the team, in full gear, just standing on the sidelines doing absolutely nothing. It seems kind of stupid. I mean, why the hell have a group that huge when most of them probably don't play ever?
Which, in my latest non sequiter, brings me to the cheerleaders. ...It really doesn't look too hard to be a cheerleader. I mean, there was a handful of girls who were getting lifted in the air and flipping over five times in a row, which I have to admit takes way more skillz than I can ever hope to posess. But for most of them, I think the hardest part was the one high kick they had to do once. The rest is just waving your arms around and shaking your hips and yelling stuff about spirit and touchdowns and school colors. And let me tell you, there is nearly no chance for any of those footballer/cheerleader lust-fests. There are a couple of juniors I recognized, probably a few sophmores, and mostly freshmen. Every single one of them looked twelve years old. And they all looked pretty bored, too. I can't imagine what the draw of being a cheerleader is at this point. Maybe they get free cookies?
There was one point where I think I half-understood why people like the game. They started in formation as usual, and everything exploded into bodies cracking against each other like it always did, but this time the guy who ended up with the ball made it out and started running like heck, right where I could see him. And everybody was cheering and getting excited, and you could tell, wherever he was headed with that ball, it was somewhere good. It felt like...like in a movie, when two people are having an epic battle, and the hero is at the point where he's about to be stabbed through the heart...and then something in his face hardens, and he flips himself up and backs the enemy against a wall and delivers his kickass parting line and finishes him off. Just that feeling of yes, yes, he's going to make it, HELL YES. The fact that it was football made it less potent, but still, I caught a glimpse of that emotion in everybody's faces. And that must be the point, right? The real point.
It was the first time I've ever looked at football as more than a dick-measuring contest between neaderthals. This must be the way to get average people to really care about a "character." Sports are cool to like, and the "story" is easy to follow, and there's even the fanfiction aspect (I never really understood fantasy football before this moment). I still don't see the appeal when you could be following a real story, but I think I understand it a little better.
Football. I still don't really understand the game itself. Here's what I've gathered from my experience: a bunch of guys in huge shoulder pads and tight leggings fight over an oddly shaped ball, trying to get it to their end of the field. And then sometimes one of them has to kick the ball all the way across the field and try to get it through those big white forky-things. Goalposts? Goalposts. I guess there probably isn't too much more, but as soon as my dad started trying to comment on the game, I got lost. Also, the scoring's pretty wonky, because people kept cheering, but they didn't have any points for like half the game, and then suddenly they jumped up into the teens.
The funny thing is, there's about ten or fifteen guys per team who basically play the entire time, which is what you see on TV, right? But what they don't show is that there's like fifty other guys on the team, in full gear, just standing on the sidelines doing absolutely nothing. It seems kind of stupid. I mean, why the hell have a group that huge when most of them probably don't play ever?
Which, in my latest non sequiter, brings me to the cheerleaders. ...It really doesn't look too hard to be a cheerleader. I mean, there was a handful of girls who were getting lifted in the air and flipping over five times in a row, which I have to admit takes way more skillz than I can ever hope to posess. But for most of them, I think the hardest part was the one high kick they had to do once. The rest is just waving your arms around and shaking your hips and yelling stuff about spirit and touchdowns and school colors. And let me tell you, there is nearly no chance for any of those footballer/cheerleader lust-fests. There are a couple of juniors I recognized, probably a few sophmores, and mostly freshmen. Every single one of them looked twelve years old. And they all looked pretty bored, too. I can't imagine what the draw of being a cheerleader is at this point. Maybe they get free cookies?
There was one point where I think I half-understood why people like the game. They started in formation as usual, and everything exploded into bodies cracking against each other like it always did, but this time the guy who ended up with the ball made it out and started running like heck, right where I could see him. And everybody was cheering and getting excited, and you could tell, wherever he was headed with that ball, it was somewhere good. It felt like...like in a movie, when two people are having an epic battle, and the hero is at the point where he's about to be stabbed through the heart...and then something in his face hardens, and he flips himself up and backs the enemy against a wall and delivers his kickass parting line and finishes him off. Just that feeling of yes, yes, he's going to make it, HELL YES. The fact that it was football made it less potent, but still, I caught a glimpse of that emotion in everybody's faces. And that must be the point, right? The real point.
It was the first time I've ever looked at football as more than a dick-measuring contest between neaderthals. This must be the way to get average people to really care about a "character." Sports are cool to like, and the "story" is easy to follow, and there's even the fanfiction aspect (I never really understood fantasy football before this moment). I still don't see the appeal when you could be following a real story, but I think I understand it a little better.