I Hate Football

Michigan vs. MSU.  The game that broke my heart.

I hate football.

Every year I get my hopes up, only to have everything pulled away from me, year after year, like Lucy pulling away the football from Charlie Brown.  This year it will be different.  That's what you say.  And every year you are crushed.

I am loyal to four teams.  And I stick with those teams no matter what.

The Detroit Lions last won a championship in 1957.  I was two years old.  Since 1957, they have won a total of ONE playoff games.  They are rarely even competitive two seasons in a row.  This year, they lost their first five games, some as bad as I have ever seen them.

The Atlanta Falcons have one Super Bowl appearance.  That was in 1998, where they were crushed by the Denver Broncos.  Ask Alison about the frustration of being a Falcons fan.  They also run hot and cold.   They currently are running hot, but how long that will last is any body's guess.  The last game they played against the Saints made it look like their earlier 5-0 record was a fluke.

The Georgia Bulldogs often string out good if not great seasons, They last won the national championship in 1980.

The Michigan Wolverines, my Alma mater, my heart and soul.  They last won the National Championship in 1997, but even then, they were only declared co-champions along with Nebraska, the only year I know that a co-championship has occurred.  Recently, the Wolverines have suffered many subpar seasons, triggered by the disastrous hiring of Rich Rodriguez, the worst coach Michigan ever brought in.  Jim Harbaugh, this year's new coach, promised to change all that, and was off to a energizing start.  That all ground to a halt with the heartbreaking last second loss to MSU.  With only ten seconds left, a punted ball was mishandled by the Wolverines, the ball scooped up by the Spartans, and rumbled in for a game winning touchdown.  I screamed and screamed until I had no voice left.

The big trouble with college football is that teams are selected for the national championship playoffs by poll rather than by conference champions.  That means, unless you are in the SEC, one loss almost always takes you out of contention, and two losses certainly leaves you in the cold.  And whatever the Wolverines do, even if they beat OSU and then win the conference championship, they will not go to the playoffs.  It's over.  It's just a matter of which booby prize bowl they will play in.

The Wolverines are filled with fine players and staff.  So are the Spartans.  I don't blame the punter.  I don't blame Harbaugh.  The officiating was often atrocious, but that's a different story.  I blame myself, and the horrible kismet and curse it is to be one of my favorites.

But that is only one of the reasons I am beginning to hate football.

The young man who recovered the punt for the Spartans, Jalen Watts-Jackson, suffered a season ending injury during his heroic run. He dislocated and fractured his hip, an injury that will hopefully only keep him out this season, but it's one that could end his career and affect his health the rest of his life.  Recent prognosis is better than originally projected, and we all keep in our prayers.

But that is only one of the horrible injuries that occur all the time in football.  They occur constantly.  Some take you out for a game, some for a season, some end your career.  And once in a great while, they end a player's life.  Some injuries haunt their health for the rest of their lives.  We're only beginning to understand the devastating damage accumulated concussions do.

Football is our most war-like sport, the most like the gladiatorial games from the Roman coliseum.  The injuries that occur are not worth it.  The Spartans win is not worth the good health of a fine young man like Jalen Watts-Jackson.

None of my boys played football.  They're not small boys, and technically could have done it.  But they did not have the interest or the athleticism to take it on.  And although I would have backed them whatever they decided, I am secretly grateful they did not choose to play.

And what does that say about my interest in football?  That I watch something that I would rather my own sons not do?

I hate football.

Will I give it up?  Sigh.  Probably not.

But I do have some thinking to do.