Football By Any Other Name is Soccer

Football is big in this state.  Boys start playing the game as young as 4 or 5 years of age, when their helmets are bigger than they are.  I became interested in football from an early age, probably because it was the only thing on military television when we lived in Germany. When we returned to Texas, my parents enrolled my brother in Pop Warner football, when he was eight.  I was dragged to his practices, and when I didn't have a book to read, I watched the players slam into each other without regard for their personal safety.  They were being boys, and that is what boys do.  I can remember the sound of eggs cracking; that was how it sounded when helmets struck together just so.

My love of football stuck around for awhile.  I read books about the sport, and even subscribed to Sports Illustrated for a while to stay current.  I was a faithful viewer of the NFL.  I was watching the night that Joe Theisman broke his leg on Monday Night Football, and I sat through the 300 repeat viewings of the incident without throwing up like my roommate. Although I never got into college football much, I did manage to attend an icy Texas A&M vs. the University of Texas game one Thanksgiving.  Those fans kept me warm with their chanting and screaming, but I really didn't get the hype.

But my love of football has cooled over the years.  I've always had soccer in the back of my mind.  When you mention football in other countries, that's the mental image people get.  Foosball, futbol...means soccer.  In Germany, soccer was king if you weren't living on a military post.  Germans love them some soccer, and I can remember posters and magazine covers of the local stars, even if I usually couldn't read the headlines.

Soccer is not for the faint of heart, certainly.  Soccer doesn't allow for timeouts, or commercial breaks, or coaching from the sidelines.  Once you're on the field, that's it, until half time 45 minutes later.  The larger, heavier players are not usually as successful as the lighter, more limber players, like Lionel Messi.  A soccer player has to be able to think on his feet as well as run, as there aren't really specific plays. Just about everything happens in the moment, based on decisions made by the player with the ball.  He(or she) must quickly make calculations and predictions based upon the other players on the field, ball trajectory, and the placement of other team members.  No wonder studies have shown soccer players to have higher IQ scores than other athletes!

So now my own boy plays soccer.  He's never been interested in any other sport.  Besides, soccer was a natural choice for an active child like mine.  Zane runs all the time, so why not throw a ball in the mix and point him at a goal?  He's actually not too bad at the sport, and he loves it.  His skills improve every day.  He's not only learning about the game, but he is also learning about working as a team, following the rules, and other life skills. He doesn't have any padding on him, like they do in American football, but boys fall down a lot.  They're boys. 

There are 600 soccer balls all over my house, because Zane likes to run around with a soccer ball in front of him.  The entire family watched the World Cup this year, and that's what we will be doing in four years.  We attend soccer games even when Zane isn't playing; his cousins play soccer as well.  My husband, brother, and my father all coached soccer at one time or another, so they have plenty to talk about at family gatherings.  Soccer has become a family thing.
 
My son may decide to play American football one day, when he is older.  This is Texas, and American football is king.  If he does want to play that sport, I'll try to be okay with that decision.  Right now, he loves him some soccer.  And so do I.



Mamakat had an extra prompt that caught my eye: write a post inspired by the word football.  Thank you, Mamakat!

No Bell Ringers

I have been a football fan for some time.  The heyday of the Dallas Cowboys in the seventies, when Tom Landry was a god of the gridiron, is still fresh in my head.  Even when I was eight, I would have killed for Landry's calm demeanor, the center of a storm of battle on a field of green. He was my hero, along with Roger Staubach.  Surrounded by military men drinking German bier, I watched Jackie Smith drop a pass in the end zone of the Super Bowl and cried with the rest of the Dallas fans at the party.  During my college years, Monday nights were sacrosanct, as all the girls in my dorm gathered around the television to watch Monday Night Football.

Every football game is a battle of sorts.  The players on the field try to beat each other to a pulp to get a ball to move down the field.  Heads get knocked around along with the bodies as everyone fights for the ball.  It's exciting when there's a spectacular tackle on a play, it's difficult to deny that.  There's a thrill that rolls through every fan when a team scores a touchdown, a vicarious victory that carries some people on a high for days.

In Texas, boys and girls are taught from birth that football is king.  To be a high school football player in the state of Texas is to be vaguely worshipped by the masses.  There are parades and pep rallies and autograph signings before they even get their diploma.  In some of the small towns, football is the only entertainment available, and those teens are the closest thing to a celebrity that most people will ever meet. 

It's that big a deal.

When we arrived in San Antonio after leaving Germany, my brother was dutifully signed up for Pop Warner football because he was expected to do so.  It didn't matter that he was only 8--he played.  The helmet seemed much too large for my brother to carry on his head, but he did it.  I was usually dragged along to practices, and when I did not have a book in hand, I watched my brother play. 

The sound of the helmets striking each other always reminded me of eggs cracking, but that sound meant that the boys were doing what they were supposed to.   Sometimes a boy "got his bell rung" by a particularly rough tackle, but I don't remember anyone ever saying the 'C' word.  In most cases, the kid was back in the game after five minutes on the bench.  It wasn't that the coaches were inattentive or heartless--football is all about toughness.  "Play it through" is what most players were told, because that's what the professionals did. 

But the 'C' word in football is a big deal, it turns out.  Concussions, once thought to be minor blips on the brain's radar, are indeed a very big deal, as new research shows.  Repeated concussions can kill, if the brain swells as a result of a hit. Over time, those hits to the head can cause all sorts of degenerative issues, including memory loss and dementia. It's scary.  While the NFL and the college teams can afford the expensive helmets to protect their players, the millions of kids who play high school football and younger don't have that luxury.  They never could.  I now wonder how many of the football players I knew will be statistics in twenty or thirty years, as they hit what should be their golden years. 

I don't want that for my son.  Right now, my child is smart, curious, and interested in the world around him.  He is observant and eager to learn.  He is friendly and outgoing, happy and carefree.  I want him to stay that way.  I am his Mama, and I want him to stay as safe as he can be.  I'm not overprotective. I have done my research. I know that all sports carry some risk of injury. My child could just as easily be injured playing basketball, baseball, or soccer.  I know that.  But since football tops the list in the injury odds, I'd rather he avoid that sport altogether.

I still enjoy watching the NFL games on Sundays.  It would be weird to deny all those years of football watching.  I still get a little thrill when the quarterback takes the snap and steps back while the offensive line tries to protect him for the several seconds necessary for the play to advance.  I still love a well executed play, and cheer when a pass is caught by a receiver.  I celebrate the end zone dances just like most people.  My hope is that, with this new information, the game will get safer for every player.

Until then, my kid will not play.