Football Season

I don't know a lot about football.

For a while I watched the alley games at recess in grade school; there was a virtually unused alley behind the school, and steps all along it like a planned stadium. Watching the older kids play, I felt sure that I had a future in football; I could run faster than any other kid in the school, so if I could get someone to let me play, and get me the ball, I could score points and assure my team victory.

Fifth grade saw me get a chance to play, and sure enough, if I could get the ball, I could get it across the goal line without being tagged. But playing alley football is more than running -- you have to be able to throw the football back and forth if you can't muster enough kids to play a game.

I moaned to my dad that I was no good at tossing, so he and Mom went and bought me my own football. With his big hand wrapping the football, Dad taught me how to throw from the shoulder and put a tight spin on the ball. Before long, I went from being a running back and receiver to playing quarterback, and being a welcomed participant in the alley games, even though I was a pathetic girl.

The next two years I saw a lot of play, a bookish girl in thick glasses and dresses, skipping the jump-rope and giggle crowd for the ol' pigskin; then we were off to the junior high school and no opportunity to play. The boys were all sprouting whiskers, and the girls had discovered boobs on themselves, and football was not that important except as an extracurricular activity reserved for boys.

Later on, there was 4-H camp, and I was rediscovered as a talent during the pickup games at Junior Leadership Camps. During that time, perhaps my favorite memory of a game was when the counselors didn't make us go to sleep, but let us stay up and play football under the light of a full moon until we were exhausted. It was a game full of mistakes, but giddy fun in dark shadows and bluish highlights.

I remember the feeling of sending the ball down the field, the spin pouring out from my elbow down my arm to my hand, and seeing the football drill through the air to a receiver; I remember the capture of the power of a throw as I'd catch a football and let its inertia press it close into my arms and side so that it could not be swatted away, moving with it so that it wouldn't hurt to catch it. I remember numerous occasions of having my fingers taped together to heal after being stoved by scuffles over a pass.

Like I said, I don't know a lot about football, but I do know a stinko game when I see one, and that would be the San Francisco 49's against Arizona Cardinals. What a horrible time those teams must have had, leaving the field, SF players thinking, "Wow, I really suck" and Cardinals thinking, "Hey, we won ... but I really suck."

And they did, all of them. Sorry, guys. Made me wish I could still play.