Date: September 21, 2020
Time of post: 10:40PM
Quarantine Day: 180
Last Song I Listened To: “The Boys of Fall” by Kenny
Chesney (obviously)
Last Person I Communicated With: Meg McCrina via
Instagram DM
Last Thing I Ate: cinnamon tea and a croissant
Last Thing I Read: my own essay that I was editing
Current Mood: ~n o s t a l g i c ~
One Thing I’ve Accomplished Today: made edits to an
essay!
One Thing I Want To Accomplish Today: start grading
some (more) papers…or maybe just HW assignments
One Reason I’m Stressed Today: so much to grade! And I
just found out that I have about 2 weeks less time to work on a presentation
that I thought I’d have
We get a few days of 50-degree weather a couple weeks
ago, and I get nostalgic. To be fair, nostalgia is my favorite emotion, so it
doesn’t take much, but, every fall, without failure, you can expect me to wax
poetic about some seemingly insignificant thing.
Since moving to Kansas in 2018, that “thing” that
really gets me misty-eyed is…football.
I know, I know. The Alabama girl getting worked up
about football is the most cliché thing ever. But you have to know me: I don’t
like football.
Granted, my behavior might say otherwise:
Growing up in a college town, I was a fixture at JSU
gamedays from the time I could toddle. (I didn’t pay much attention, but I
really liked the mascot and the band.)
I went to every high school football game from 7th grade to senior year. (Years 8-12 I was in the marching band, though.)
I played on the Powder Puff team my senior year. (I
was an offensive linewoman, FYI.)
Once I got to college—the same campus and stadium I
frequented as a tot—I went to every home game for four years. (What can I say?
My roommate was in the band; I like school spirit and winning.)
I hosted a “First NFL Game of the Season” party and a
Super Bowl party for the 2019-2020 season.
To be fair, I still don’t know all the rules. My
brother literally taught me what the phrase “ice the kicker” means today—it’s
when the other team calls a timeout right before the kicker kicks the field
goal to throw him off his game. I didn’t learn what a “pick 6” was until
undergrad—that’s when there’s an interception (the ball’s “picked off”) that’s
run back for a touchdown (which is worth 6 points). Thank you to my football
friends who patiently sat in the stands and explained football terms to me for
4 years. I’m still trying to learn the fouls and what they mean, but I usually
just gauge my reaction on whether or not the home crowd boos.
But football, for me, has never been based off the sport. It’s the people. It’s the memories. It’s the nostalgia. Even my favorite teams are rooted in people. My parents grew up just outside of Pittsburgh, and we're big Steelers fans. I was really into Troy Polamalu as a kid. I think I liked his name. Or maybe his hair. My other team now is the Kansas City Chiefs, for the sole reason that they’re the “hometown team,” and I love a hometown team. Plus, Patrick Mahomes is such a cutie, inside and out. (Fun fact: I was once in the same room as Patrick Mahomes AND the Jonas Brothers. Okay, it was arena. For the Jonas Brothers concert last year. And I never saw Mahomes. Still, technically I was in the same room as them.)
My biggest NFL memories include youth group Super Bowl
parties where we paid more attention to the halftime show and the commercials
than we did to the game and popping into the living room on Sunday nights to
ask my dad, “Who are we cheering for?” (For the record, the answer is “Not the
Ravens” whenever the Ravens are playing. Same for the Patriots and the Cowboys.
Dad has always liked an underdog, so we usually cheer for them.)
As I’ve gotten older, I’ve developed a few opinions,
like how I think Russell Wilson (Seattle Seahawks) is a good guy or how like
the Watt brothers (JJ for the Houston Texans and TJ and DJ for the Steelers) because
of all the fundraising they did when Texas flooded. I melt at how much Patrick
Mahomes loves KC, and I fume any time Jerry Jones’ (owner of the Dallas
Cowboys) name is brought up because of how he spoke/speaks about the Black
Lives Matter movement and forbids his team from kneeling. I’m a sucker for a
human interest story, too. Catch me tearing up whenever a player talks about
buying their parents a house or they air a heartwarming pre-game feature about
a player who overcame big odds to play pro football. (Shaquem Griffin? The
Seahawks’ linebacker who had his left hand amputated when he was 4? I actually
cried the first time I learned about him.)
Even writing that previous paragraph, I had to look
these players up. I couldn’t have told you what team Griffin plays for. I don’t
even know what a linebacker does. Does it matter that he only has one hand?
Does he ever touch the ball? I don’t know. It’s not about the sport.
When I was young, I liked the energy—the palpable crowds, the competition, wearing matching shirts, and getting to scream. Once I hit high school—and, even then, not until my Sophomore-ish year—it was personal. I knew people on the team. Come Senior year, it was REALLY personal.
My Senior year of high school was magical. (“As it should be,” my mom snuffled when I brought this up to her over the weekend.) Really, Netflix should have made a movie about the Jacksonville High School Class of 2014. The highlight of my Senior year fall was football season. The new administration reinstated the Powder Puff football game after a 6-year absence—there was some vandalism and destruction of property involved—only to try to cancel it a couple weeks before the game. We even had secret practices off-campus so the principal wouldn’t find out. And, during those weeks leading up to the Powder Puff game—which we didn’t even score during, let alone win—my class got closer than ever: football players and band kids and cheerleaders and popular girls and nerds and athletes. I talked to people I hadn’t spoken to since elementary school—and we got along. Shoutout to our coaches LaVonte, Reid, Payton, and Dominique, who showed us nothing but patience as they taught us all actual football terms and plays. (I remember the word “sweep,” but I couldn’t tell you what I was supposed to do during a sweep. Run left? Run right? Who knows?) They made sure we all had a position to play—even me, and I have NO athletic ability.
But Powder Puff wasn’t the only football highlight of Senior year. Our football team was actually good. We’d been on the upswing for a couple years, following more than a few 2-8 seasons, but the 2013 season was *chef’s kiss*. We beat our arch-rival in triple overtime on Senior Night when their extra point kick bounced off the upright. It was magical. Then, we hosted the first round of 4A state playoffs for the first time in history, and we won. When we lost in the next round to the team that would ultimately go on to win State that year, I bawled my eyes out for the whole fourth quarter. When the players lined up in front of the “Do It For The Moms” banner on the sideline and cried while singing our alma mater, I was inconsolable.
Like I said, we were movie material.
Maybe it’s the culture of small Southern towns. Maybe
if I had grown up in a different region, in a bigger city with more funding,
I’d get teary-eyed over debate team scenes or that Scholar’s Bowl scene in _Mean
Girls_. As it is, though, I romanticize the heck out of football now, and
there’s no bigger football in the South than SEC football.
I have a distinct memory of being in third grade, and
every day my teacher would have us answer a question, and we’d put a star with
our name on it by our answer. This particular day, the question was, “Who’s
your favorite football team?” Our choices were “Alabama,” “Auburn,” “JSU,” and
probably “Other.”
Now, if you’re not from Alabama, you might not fully
realize the significance of the Alabama vs Auburn rivalry.
It is a barely contained war. (Don’t even get me
started on the Iron Bowl.)
Former Auburn head coach Tommy Tuberville is runningfor Senate, and there are people who won’t vote for him because they’re Alabama
fans. (That’s not why they shouldn’t be voting for him; there are endless otherreasons, but his football team association is what they’re basing it off of.)
Alabama’s legendary (deceased) head coach Bear Bryant ends up a write-incandidate on ballots every election. There are babies born named
Crimson, Tide/Tyde, Auburn, and Bear more often then I care to think about. A crazed
Alabama fan poisoned the iconic 80-year-old trees in Toomer’s Corner on
Auburn’s campus just because, “I wanted Auburn people to hate me as much as Ihate them.” And I’m very convinced that current Alabama head coach Nick
Saban could start a religion to rival Christianity if he got it in his head to
do so.
(PS, Alabamians reading this, vote for Doug Jones. Please.)
So back to third grade Katie. I didn’t care for either
Alabama or Auburn, having Pennsylvanian parents who didn’t subscribe to either
cult follow—I mean, fanbase. So I put JSU as my favorite team, because, again,
they were the home team.
I was one of 2 to do so.
The older I got, though, the more I paid attention to
college football and noticed that the names I’d hear praised by announcers on
Saturdays often turned into names I’d hear on Sundays a few years later. (Like,
you may or may not remember the “Scam Newton” scandal, but he’s playing for the
Patriots now, and, honestly, that’s fitting. Cam Newton has the right energy to
play for the Pats.) Even as a young high schooler, I thought it was pretty cool
to hear about professional athletes coming from Alabama. (What can I say? It
makes my heart warm to hear my home state on the news for something that isn’t
our failing education system or misogynistic politics. And sometimes the pro
players coming from an Alabama school aren’t involved in scandals…sometimes.)
And when you’re 10/12/14/16, those 20 and 22-year-old Heisman-candidate
athletes feel like adults. It’s only when you hit 18/20/22 yourself (and older)
that you realize all this hype is about…kids.
And here’s where I’m going to get all sentimental.
I’ve seen football players at every stage: I’ve been 8
watching other little kids bumble around on the field in too-big shoulder pads.
I’ve been 8 watching 18-year-olds sign to their dream college. I’ve been 18
watching other 18-year-olds get scouted by big schools. I’ve been 18 watching
22-year-olds win Heisman Trophies and getting drafted to the NFL. I’ve been 22
watching “that guy I had a COM class with once” play in national championship
games or go to the NFL draft or get injured and end his career. Now, I’m 24 and
teaching 18-year-olds with whole careers ahead of them, careers that have been
and will continue to be full of grown adults literally assigning point values
to them, comparing them to every other boy with a football dream in the
country, putting the weight of a team and a university and a city and a region
and a franchise on their shoulders sometimes, telling them how talented they
are, telling them they’re not talented enough, screaming at them and tweeting
at them when they have a “bad game.”
I sometimes wonder how many of the Patrick Mahomeses
and Russell Wilsons and Payton Mannings and Aaron Rodgerses and Troy Polamalus
and Watt brothers and Shaquem and Shaquill Griffins started playing football as
little kids and never really had the chance to stop. Growing up in Alabama,
some people will put their sons in peewee football at 3 or 4 years old, and
they’ll play ball until they go pro or get injured. And when you do something
for that long, it’s got to start feeling like the only choice, even if you love
it.
I can’t even wrap my mind around that, around having
an ideal life course set in place at 4-years-old. But I’ve seen it. As a
Communications major in undergrad, I could have paid for college if I had a
dollar for every football player who was a Broadcast major. Their plan was
always to be an ESPN broadcaster after their NFL career ended.
None of them were drafted.
And I always wondered what happened to them or how
they coped with life plans going so awry. I hope they found their worth outside
of football.
One of the essays I teach in my freshman composition
class is called an autoethnography. It asks students to write about a moment
that they were made aware of a part of their identity in a way that they maybe
hadn’t thought about before.
Every semester, I have an athlete who wants to write
about being an athlete. We talk about it, and I almost always let them, because
I know firsthand how important sports are to people, and, for some of these
students, being an athlete is all they’ve ever known. It’s what they’ve been
working toward for years, it’s why they’re able to afford college; it’s their
identity.
But in my own little ways, I try to remind them that
they’re more than an athlete, so in case they (God forbid) get hurt, they won’t
see it as the end of their lives; so if they don’t go pro they won’t see
themselves as failures; so that even if they become the hotshot star player
with the eyes of every sports-loving fan in the nation boring into them every
weekend, they’ll remember that their ENGL 100 instructor really only cared if they turned
in their essay on time, and maybe they’ll find that a little comforting.
There I go again, romanticizing football. Being from the South, football tinges a lot of aspects of my life, even if I don’t retain the actual nuances of the game. I definitely spent a lot of time fighting against it, because how dare football get more funding than the Arts? I tried to be too cool for it, to shake the stigma that Southern football fans were just beer-drinking, tobacco-chewing, toothless, middle-aged white men who poisoned trees for the hell of it. But the truth is that some of my best memories from growing up come from football-adjacent events. From the people I spent time with while tolerating the thing I didn’t enjoy.
I don’t honestly expect my football players—or any of
my students—to remember me. I won’t remember all of them. Even the ones I do
remember now will probably fade if I keep teaching long enough. But, as a
whole, I do wonder who those wide-eyed freshmen in my classes will grow up to
be. I mean, someone had to be Patrick Mahomes’ freshman comp teacher, right?
May the odds be ever in our favor,
Katie
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