Why Is Football Life?
Are you going to sit down on Sunday and soak up every minute of football coverage you can access?
If you are a football fan, the answer is yes.
If you are a casual fan, the answer is still most likely yes.
If you aren't a fan, there is still a possibility the answer is yes.
Esquire magazine brought up a pretty fascinating point in the approaches and philosophies of why we watch football.
Some say it's everything about being a man. Others say it's everything that is wrong with society.
They also bring up the philosophical question, what would life be like without football?
We watch for whatever reason.
We're taught to love the game from parents or friends. We're socially told that's what you do.
We love the drama that comes with a two-minute drive. We love the athleticism somebody else has that we a) once had b) might never attain.
No matter the reasons, football is a multibillion-dollar business that we can't get enough of.
Without it, where would we be?
Think about this for a second. What would you do with your time?
Let's say a coach in Plano has a son who plays JV ball on Thursday. Then his other son plays varsity ball on Friday night. On Saturday, the family travels to watch their oldest son play in college. Oh and don't forget their daughter who is a cheerleader in middle school.
On Sunday, they hit the recliners and cheer for the Cowboys.
That's not too far off. It happens. That family lives and breathes football.
But what if they didn't have the game? Where would they spend their time? What would they be doing instead? Curing cancer? Dumping more ice for ALS? Finding another sport to occupy their time and give them the taste of competition that drives them?
The answers are endless.
But the simple fact is that family uses the football as the next step. It's a built in tradition in the lineage.
Now think about this?
In that same Friday night game, maybe Plano is playing against Bryan Adams. There's a kid on the team who buses tables after practice. His family works nights. His sister stays with an aunt or grandmother. He practices hard every day, but on Friday night, dad can't get off work to watch the game and neither can mom.
Nobody is watching him, except maybe that cute girl on the drill team who might see him make a play.
But he still plays.
Why?
Because he loves it? Because he thinks it's a way out? Because it could be the next step for his chance? Or because when he steps on the field on Friday nights, he's just living the dream of what he watches on Sunday's?
Now if he didn't have the game, how would he spend his time?
The sociology of football is fascinating.
How different families with different economical values and circumstances exist and take part is absorbing. And for those differences in families and lifestyles, we get different, magnificent reasons for watching, for playing and for being.
(©2014 CBS Local Media, a division of CBS Radio Inc. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.)
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