The Fine Art of Football

I am not what one might say athletically inclined. I think I failed to get in line for those genes, I was busy doubling down on my conversation skills.  But others must have gotten into the sports line because to some individuals is given to be ability to hit a ball with a bat, to others to be skill in spiking the volleyball, and yet to the few and the great the strength put on shoulder pads and run face first into another human being.  Yes that is right folks it is almost time, if not already here for the great American game named football. I have never been a fan of football but working around men you learn to pick up on the language enough to be more or less annoying, depending on my mood. The only thing I know to say is "sucks to be the kicker" because honestly that would be the worst.  To be the guy who only has to kick the ball to score the winning points but then fails and destroys the hearts of fanatics for years to come.
When I was in college this happened to a kicker at the University of Utah. They were playing the rivals of BYU and it came down to a field goal. If the kicker was able to get the ball between the posts then victory and bragging rights to the U fans. But alas, it was not meant to be, he missed the kick. The story would end here only it doesn't.  Six months later I was cutting this guys hair who played football for the U. And here is how the conversation went:
Him: I play football for the U
Me: Sucks to be the kicker, did you see how that one guy missed the kick on the BYU game
Him: Uh yeah, that was me
Me: Oh, sucks to be you
I don't think I got a tip on that haircut, my bad. I would like to say this is the only time I have put my foot in my mouth but we all know that would be a lie. Because a few years later I had another U football player in my chair, a quarterback and here is how that conversation went:
Me: Did you see Rudy
Him: Yes
Me: That was a really good movie
Him: Uh ok
Me: I would never run the ball, running the ball is stupid always throw...
Him: Some explanation about why to run that ball that I did not listen to, because honestly listening is a lot of work and I was attempting to cut his hair at the time
So here is where the story becomes ironic. At the next game this quarterback decided run the ball and got hit and broke his shoulder. Should've listened to his hairdresser, even if she did sound like she belonged on the short bus.

So with a definite lack of football knowledge,  I recently decided to venture out to the Football Hall of Fame in Canton, Ohio. I thought it would be wicked funny to tell people I went there because I know nothing about football.  My lack of ignorance of the game showed.  In this museum is a room that is filled with heads, not real heads but sculptures of every man's head that has been inducted into this Hall of Fame. Only I did not know any one and so I wandered aimlessly looking at heads and once you've seen one head you've seen them all. So I started to people watch and that is when it hit me. I did not blend in, I did not have on my teams jersey, I don't even have a favorite team, I did not know the dark art of football language, numbers and stats were flying around me but I had no interpreter. I was a woman in a foreign country wandering aimlessly.  Until I found the room that showed video clips. It was then that I realized with relief I did have a place in football, maybe I could not understand the intricacies of the sport, nor could I talk in the full language of the game. But what I could do is watch men in very tight pants beat each other up. Call it what you will but that is a good time.