Confessions of a (Secret) Football Fan

Never in my life have I enjoyed sports, that just wasn’t my thing. I was always the kid in school who actually wanted to learn. I’ve been a gee my entire life, ever since fourth grade when I wrote paleontologist on my what I want to be when I grow uppaper. My father and my brother were the sports guys and I was the guy that corrected their grammar. I had an awkward early childhood, it didn’t help when I got into the goth scene my freshman year. Luckily by graduation I had abandoned my dark clothes and reverted to geek Chic. After high-school I went to college to major in English and it was in college that I was introduced to European soccer, or football. I feel in love instantly, but how could I -an intellectual college English major- rationalize my love for something I had hated my whole life, sports. I fought with myself constantly, I hid my love from everyone, my friends, and especially my father. I would read Thoreau in the morning and then cheer my heart out for Arsenal at night.I told myself “it’s okay, its foreign that makes it okay. I mean look at those crazy American jocks and then these friendly British lads, this must make it okay for me to watch, right?” I would rationalize it from my political stand point by pointing out footballs lack of commercialism and ignorance in Europe. I would support my addiction by thinking to myself “it’s cool, very few people in America watch it so that mus make it cool and therefore I retain my cred of being different.” Yet still I hid my love, until I met Danielle. My girlfriend and love of my life (even above football) she has more intelligence in her brain stem than I have in my whole brain. She found out how much I enjoy football and you know what she told me? She said “Something called the beautiful game must be worthy of poetic praise from the highest caliber of fan.” god I love her.And so after years of hiding my love at the D&D table and at the dinner table I finally came out last year. My father of course said it didn’t count because “Europeans don’t know how to play sports.” but my friends accepted it and a couple even told me how they occasionally find themselves tuning into ESPN. In the end it was better for me to just be who I was, so to all the jocks out there I just want you to know it’s okay, it’s okay to read comic books or play Final Fantasy, that’s just who you are. And to all my geeky brethren let me say, ESPN is not that bad, watch The Beautiful Game and maybe you’ll understand (but do steer clear of NASCAR).