The Super Bowl is one of the most popular events in America. Every year fans gather around big screens at bars and friendly gatherings to watch the presumed top two teams in the NFL compete. Each year brings new thrills, highlights and commercials; yet every year I don’t really care.
It’s not that I don’t think football is entertaining, I just don’t think my upbringing and athletic history were enough to produce the avid football fellowship that most people have.
I was not known for my athletic achievements as a child. While my brother was out across the country becoming a nationally ranked amateur golfer, I was running around my parents’ house with the Millennium Falcon play station and Jabba the Hutt, and bungee jumping cats from the second story of my house.
Basketball was the first sport that I really enjoyed. I played from sun-up until the street lights came on with the neighborhood kids, and always enjoyed dunking on people. Sure, I had a few years and inches on everyone, and the goal was set on 9 ft., but dunking is dunking.
My years of being the big man handicapped me when I got to high school because I was used to playing power forward but was only 6 ft. tall. Needless to say I got payback for dunking on kids from some giants.
There was only one time where I dunked on a regulation goal that can be said to be legitimate.
It was during warm-ups of the last game of my varsity career during the state playoffs. It would never make the ESPN Top Ten, but it meant a lot to me. I played an entire minute that game and to make matters worse, we lost.
I quit basketball before my senior year so that I could pursue music and alcoholism, which went surprisingly hand in hand.
My running career was plagued with injury and confusion, while I struggled between being a thin cross athlete, a sprinter, and an obsession with power lifting and protein. By the time I was a senior I was the heaviest sprinter on the team, and was dubbed “Buffalo Basker” by my team mates. We won state that year.
Aside from these stories my athletic career doesn’t get to be too much more exciting.
There is always that sense of wanting to relive the old days when I go to the HKC, but my body can’t react fast enough to the techniques that were hammered in the hundreds of practices I endured. Although intramural soccer has kept me slim through college, I’m certain the only teams I will ever compete with will be the ones I sign up for.
As far as football goes, I just don’t get it. Maybe it’s some really cool secret that the majority of the nation doesn’t want me to know, but I don’t know if I will ever know what all the fuss is about.