We hover around the television,
Eyes glued to some small figure running, ducking, swerving.
His body is smashed in one hundred different directions
But he keeps his shoulder down and presses forward.
Such is the nature of the game.
It is for those who fight,
Those who are still growling after being knocked down time after
time.
They say that the game makes man a monster,
That the crunch of bones proves it so.
But through first downs, touchdowns, field goals, and picks,
The man is not made an animal, he simply releases the animal
within him.
It’s a sport of hard hits, of those who never quit,
Of those who never say no,
Never cry with their heads in the dirt.
It’s the perfect showcase of playing through the pain,
The perfect example of shoving down each and every obstacle.
War with the absence of guns,
A hunt with the lack of death,
Such is its nature.
No words can explain the adrenaline, the ferocity.
No scream can express the joy of a comeback and no song can sing
the joys of victory.
A family huddled close watches the closing seconds.
They bite their nails and gnash their teeth.
The last plays that determine a season,
The last time a team will grace the field for a year.
This is what a fan lives for.
And thus the thousands who watch their favorite perish time and
time again,
Will always come back to die again.
We watch just for a wish.
We watch to make our hearts finally feel bliss.
But tackles alone don’t make a game great.
The stratagem, the ballet dancing of a running back through a
lane,
The feathery hands of a receiver in the endzone.
They all teach a story different than that of crashes and
concussions.
It’s art that they play.
It’s music on lightly tapping feet, art in a swirl of motion.
It’s not just dirt but also the sky.
So you can call football stupid,
You can call it barbaric.
But I will not listen.
Because it is so much more than that.
Football is loyalty, sacrifice, sweat, and blood.
Football is fighting for a goal and reaching out your arms to grasp
that final prize.
Football is a legacy,
It is an inheritance,
And more than anything it is a dance up and down one hundred
yards,
Each trying to out-juke and maneuver the other.
It’s a recital and a ring all in one.
That’s what makes football great.
It’s playing chess with a ball and ending in checkmate.
