That bowl is just super

I didn't watch the Superbowl. I know it's un-American, and I should count myself lucky that McCarthy's gone, but I don't really like football or even commercials really so what's the point. I did watch it once, when the Seahawks were playing.

The thing is, I think I could see myself liking football, if I understood it better. In fact I loved football when I was in middle school and through my sophomore year in high school even though I didn't understand it at all. I think I could have continued loving it into college if the college I first went to had a football team or if, when I went back to college (at a school that did have a football team) I hadn't been working all the time.

I think for me football was always about community. I lived in a really small town as a kid, so small that it didn't even have its own middle school and high school. We went to the next town over for middle school and it was combined with the high school. Football was a big deal there, as it often is in very small towns, and our high school had a pretty good team. So, when I was in 7th and 8th grades I went to the football games almost every week, or at least when they were home games. Everyone went to them and I don't just mean everyone at school, but everyone in town, in two towns. I didn't understand it at all, but I loved it anyway.

Now that I'm an alumni from a college with a pretty good football team maybe I should get back into football again. I could go and tailgate, and enjoy being a part of the alumni community. Maybe I could even learn a little bit about the game and enjoy it on its own merits. Then I could watch the Superbowl and enjoy it and not have to worry about the ghost of Joe McCarthy coming for me in my sleep. Or at least I could participate in the national conversation the day after.