Just as English is an acquired language, “American football” is an acquired sport for me.
However, unlike English (in which I have become somewhat proficient), after many years of trying, I still don’t fully understand this “fútbol Americano.”
Don’t get me wrong; just as I have come to love my adopted country, I have come to love American football, albeit it has been a very intriguing relationship.
My first exposure to football was as an undergraduate student at Texas A&M. After having played and watched what Americans call “soccer” my entire youth, I had no idea what those 22 funny dressed guys were doing running back and forth on the field. But never mind: It was love at first sight, and all those Aggies watching the game along with their dates loved it too.
You see, every time our team kicked that funny shaped ball in between those tall goal posts, I got to kiss my new English bride. Even when an Aggie player happened to stumble across the “goal line” with that funny shaped ball in his hands—a big no-no in fútbol—we go to kiss our ladies. Even more strange, instead of receiving a big penalty for catching the ball with the hands in the so-called “end zone,” our team would get a whopping six points for such a serious infraction of the rules—even more points than for a real kicked goal.
In those days, I didn’t understand many of the rules, especially why the referees didn’t hand out yellow and red penalty cards by the dozen, when players pushed and shoved their opponents, grabbed them by the ankles and using various other tactics made them hit the ground very unceremoniously. Instead, the referees would pull yellow handkerchiefs out of their pockets and throw them to the ground for offenses I neither saw nor understood—offenses that oftentimes the spectators didn’t understand either, judging from their loud boos and cat calls.
But, hey, who is complaining when one gets to stand up for three hours, can constantly scream “Gig-em Aggies, sings the elegant words “Hullabaloo, Caneck! Caneck!” and, as a bonus, kisses his favorite girl every five minutes or so.
Yes, just about every five minutes in those days. “Those days” in 1966-1968, were the days when Texas A&M’s head coach was a man named Gene Stallings. Those were the days when A&M used to win many games by kicking many goals and in spite of catching the ball with the hands and running with it sometimes from one end of the field to the other. Those were also the days when, on Thanksgiving Day, we played a nearby university, referred to in short as “t.u.” A university whose players wore even funnier looking “burnt orange” outfits, and who invariably brought a dumb-looking steer named Bevo onto the football field—obviously to intimidate the Aggies and our little mascot collie, Reveille. The t.u. supporters, some with orange hair and orange faces, would incessantly make weird gestures with their index and pinky fingers, and shout some medieval words about hooks and horns, all in an apparent effort to hex the Aggies.
None of these rituals seemed to work in “those days,” especially during my junior year at A&M, in 1967. That was the year when Texas A&M beat “t.u.” on Thanksgiving Day, went on to win the Southwest Conference, was invited to the Cotton Bowl Classic and beat Alabama.
There have been other good years for Texas A&M, but I’ll never forget that year, as it is the year when I got “hooked” on college football.
Since my alma mater has not been doing too well lately, I don’t watch college football much anymore. Of course, I still watch “soccer” and I also watch professional football.
In contrast to college football and to fútbol, I had never been to a “live” professional football game, until this past Sunday.
A couple of months ago, a gracious friend gave us tickets for the January 3, Dallas Cowboys-Philadelphia Eagles game, to be played at the new Dallas Cowboys Stadium in Arlington, Texas.
Naturally we were excited. We had heard so much about the stadium: a $1.2 billion football nirvana; the largest domed stadium in the world; a cube of giant high definition video screens hovering 90 feet above the field, two of them spanning from 20 yard line to 20 yard line; five star cuisine for some and $10 pop-corn for most.
Being a “naturalized Texan,” I was of course rooting for the Cowboys.
As it got closer to game day, the Cowboys-Eagles game took on greater significance and eventually became the game that would produce the winner of the NFC East crown.
To this Texan, who thought that he had finally learned most of the college football rules and intricacies, it didn’t matter when I didn’t understand every professional football call; or that I sometimes missed a play by switching from watching action on the field to first one, then the other of the mesmerizing, gigantic video screens; or that I was often distracted by the gorgeous Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders just standing on the sidelines; or that the Cowboys fans in the crowd of 100,621 made a deafening noise every time the Eagles were about to snap the ball (I was told this is to keep the offense from hearing the calls for the play); or that I had to pay $5 for a bag of peanuts.
By now, every red-blooded American knows the outcome of Sunday’s fantastic game in a fantastic stadium.
Watching the Dallas Cowboys play “in the flesh” and their commanding win certainly tilted my football interests towards the professional kind, although I’ll never turn down the excitement and the emotion of a good partido de fútbol, especially during the World Cup, or the spirit and tradition of a good Aggie football game, especially against t.u.
Being a good Texan, and hopefully a good sport, I do wish t.u. the University of Texas success this Thursday in Pasadena. That’s one more college football game I’ll be surely watching.
The author is a retired U.S. Air Force officer and a writer.