Football.

I have often said that I think I should have been born a boy.  Metaphorically, that is.  The truth is, I love sports.  I’m not a makeup, hairstyle, manicure and accessorizing kind of a gal.  Never have been and at just a year shy of 50, likely never will.  I’m a no makeup, un-coiffure-d, plain nails, and overalls wearing kind of a gal who reads the sports page first.  Period.

And God gave me boys who play sports.  Needless to say, He knew what He was doing.

I don’t suppose they had much of a choice in the matter.  When they were infants, their Nana and Grandpa bought them New York Mets “onesies.”   There wasn’t a Christmas that went by without some sort of sports paraphernalia under the tree and when the appropriate time came, we signed them up for t-ball and soccer and they took to it like bees to honey.

And I was happy.

I didn’t quite get soccer.  Despite the fact that my grandfather played soccer on the Italian national team in his youth, soccer didn’t grab me the way baseball did.  I’d drag my canvas folding chair to the soccer games and sit there with all the soccer moms and dads and cheer as my kids ran up and down the field like a school of fish looking for dinner.  And it was fun.

But not as fun as baseball.

Nothing quite beats baseball in my book.  Sitting in the warm sunshine, scorecard in hand.  Watching the pitcher bunt the runner over to second.  Seeing a shoestring catch in the outfield.  Hearing the crack of the bat and cheering as the home team pushes the go-ahead run across the plate.  Pure ecstasy.

A year ago my oldest came home from school and said, “The junior varsity football coach asked me if I had ever thought of playing football.”

Gulp.

“What did you tell him?” I inquired, my anxious resistance bubbling to the surface.

“I told him no, not really.”

Good.

“But he suggested that I come out for spring football and see what I thought.  So I’m going to do that, OK?”

Gulp.  Gulp.  Gulp.

“OK,” I replied, trying to convince myself that it really was.

Just to be clear.  I like football as much as the next guy (or gal, as the case may be).   I was the drum major of the marching band, for goodness sakes.  Friday night football games were a staple of my high school career and many a Sunday afternoon was spent watching Joe and Steve and Jerry and Ronnie dazzle us with more Superbowl performances than any team should be allowed to have.  Football is great fun, no doubt about it.  I enjoy watching people play it.  Other people.  Not my people.

And I was happy that my people didn’t play football. 

Until one day they did.

“But football is so dangerous,” I lamented to my unsympathetic husband who was weaned on the Green Bay Packers. 

“He’ll be fine.  Besides, he’s playing on the line.  Offensive linemen don’t tend to get hurt too much.  It’s the skill position players you have to worry about.”

“Are you saying our kid doesn’t need skill to play football?” I queried.  He just rolled his eyes.

“Mom, you so don’t get it,” shot back the football player to be.  “The skill position players are the ones that handle the ball.  I block.  That’s what linemen do.”

Got it.

Last night was the season opener.  I sat in the passenger seat as he maneuvered the car northward to the school to attend pre-game adjustments, walk through and last minute preparations.  “Are you nervous?” I asked him.

“A little bit,” he admitted.  “I don’t suppose I should be.  I mean, there’s only going to be thousands of people there and video cameras and the newspapers and …,” his voice trailed off, lost for a moment in the magnitude of it all.  “When you play a baseball game, you just get there about an hour before and get ready to play.  This is so much more…”

“You’re going to be fine.  Just focus on what is in front of you.  Don’t worry about the rest of it.”

And whatever you do… don’t get hurt.

He didn’t.

It was a great game and he did everything that was asked of him.  He blocked, because that, after all, is what linemen do and he did it well. 

And I sat in the stands, surrounded by moms and dads and brothers and sisters and grandmas and grandpas and even a newspaper person or two and did what I was supposed to do.  I cheered.  Loudly.

And it was great fun.

No, nothing quite beats baseball.  But watching my kid play football sure comes close.