Sorry, I don’t Super Bowl
I wonder if my family was more disappointed by my lack of interest in football than my decision to stop going to church. There’s a chance that I’ll return to the church pew, but as I reach middle age, I’ll be absent from the bleachers.
As the Super Bowl approaches, the non-sports fans minority I belong to are bracing for the uncomfortable silence that follows the question “Who ya’ rooting for?”
“I don’t follow sports. Sorry,” I meekly respond.
Whether stranger or friend, a potential conversation about “The Game” with me fumbles. Barber shop and water cooler banter results in a foul ball. I take pride in being a Swiss Army knife of conversation, but when sports enters the exchange, I feel like I’m missing the most common tool — the screwdriver.
Even in this divided nation, sports talk is universal flint that can spark conversation with just about anyone. One could be a Trump voting bull rider or a transgendered communist unicyclist. If they both wear the same team jersey, there’s hope of amicability. As Super Bowl LI approaches, a 7-layer dip tray of fan solidarity will be passed across the nation from sea to shining sea, sports bars, gay bars, overpriced urban lofts, tailgates, ex-burb man caves.
I think I’ll spend that weekend watching that documentary about sea grouses or binge watch The Magicians on Netflix.
I suppose sports fandom is baked into one’s DNA like blue eyes or premature baldness, but is missing from my Bama born helixes. My Alabama kin were as commonplace as tabasco pepper sauce and greens. After church dismissed, the men of my family converged around the TV exchanging praises for Jesus for praises for Paul “Bear” Bryant. Football just didn’t hook me like starships, robots, superheroes and space. I’d be moaning behind the couch, pining to watch a movie or a PBS show. To silence my protests, I was blessed with a TV in my room where I could watch my sci-fi movies and NOVA.
In school, sports disinterest instantly banished me to the wastes of the social strata, and I was fine with that. In PE, I volunteered to play left field and read comic books in my pop-fly free heaven. Yet, the PE field was the bullies’ stalking ground, and the sight of a missed ground ball or a volleyball to the head was akin to blood in the water. By my mid teens, I masked my dwebish scent by forcing myself to throw, run, and catch at a novice level.
The unintended side effect was I became semi-competent at sports, and maybe I had some talent. During high school PE, a stray football from a nearby game tumbled to my feet. The players urged me to throw it back. Annoyed that I had to touch the thing, I snapped the football toward the loudest kid, about 50 feet away. It spiraled like rifle shot and landed with a painful slap in the kid’s hands. He cursed and shook his throbbing palms.
“Mr. Elmore!”, the PE coach ordered.
I lumbered over fearing that ten muddy laps lay in my future, but instead I got scouted. The PE coach asked, “That was a mean snap. You ever played football?”
I shook my head.
“You should try out. I help coach the team. With some work, I bet you could be an amazing second string quarterback. You don’t run half bad either.”
I hunched my shoulders to hide my height. “No, thanks.”
He closed in and whispered in my ear. “Do you have any idea how much pussy you’ll get? I’m talking cheerleaders, and you can get a free ride to college.”
His offered perked my interest, but I declined the offer. The enticements of harems and a greased rail to college couldn’t budge my nature. I filed myself among loosely affiliated sports-adverse tribes of proto-geeks, goths, stoners, bookworms and metalheads.
Yet, some can traverse between creative pursuits and foam finger waggling sports fandom. My social sphere is comprised of writers, artists, and performers. We read books, go to shows, attend and participate in local LiveLit events, and tilt portside on politics. Yet, upon the arrival of football, basketball or baseball season, their interests switch between NPR and ESPN without compromising their talents. They juggle between book clubs and fantasy football. Many great minds and creatives excelled in their field and on the field. Carl Sagan loved to shoot hoops. Kerouac went to Colombia on a football scholarship. Young Morrissey moped with ease on the soccer pitch.
I confess my envy of them, not because I wish to fit in anywhere. Sports fan of any tribe can perform one trick I cannot — have common currency with almost anyone of any persuasion. They can pass They can drop into a strange city, make banter with locals and camouflage their strangeness. PBS can talk SportsRadio. I only speak PBS, and some NPR. I will forever be the quiet one watching soda bubbles float in my drink when the topic switches to sports.
Despite this predicament, I’m a patriot of my home town and wish victory for our home team. I patched into the collective cheers as the Tampa Bay Buccaneers won Super Bowl XXXVII, will do the same when the Atlanta (Google: Atlanta’s football team), um, Falcons win.
And I will always root for Roll Tide. I got to have Thanksgiving somewhere.
