Football Isn’t Life

Anyone who knows me knows that I love football.  I love football in general and the New England Patriots in particular.  The 2012 schedule of games is taped to the side of a small bureau that faces the recliner in which I sit to watch the games, all the better to keep track of exact dates, times, and stations where said games will be found.  

I own a Tedy Bruschi football jersey that literally comes down to my knees but was the only size available when I finally had enough cash in hand to make a purchase.  And I cannot tell a lie, in spite of my recent promise to myself not to add to my t-shirt collection (at least not for a while anyway) I couldn’t resist the gray Patriots shirts on sale at Job Lot last week and have washed and worn mine at least three times in the last week.  Figuring “In for a penny, in for a pound,” I also bought the matching gray hoodie although it hasn’t been cold enough to wear it yet.

As I sit here at my computer writing this I am facing the large Tedy Bruschi poster on my wall that shows him flinging snow in celebration of the interception of the pass that he ran in for a touchdown (I think it was December 2006), a Christmas gift from my children who knew how much I had wanted it.  Behind me is a framed photo the Pats lined up for kickoff at Gillette Stadium that was given to me by my sister Gail who is also a fan. And as soon as I pull myself together I plan to have a photo of Tom Brady, taken by my friend Joan, mounted and framed along with the team roster that bears his autograph from a couple years ago.

Yes, I am a fan, but it wasn’t always so.  

My son Rick and his best friend Steve were fans from the very earliest days, back when they were in grade school and the Pats almost never won a game.  Until Rick’s health failed to the point where he almost never left the house anymore, he and Steve got together to watch the games every week, hotly debating every player change and staffing decision.  One thing that they always agreed on, however, was that Steve Grogan was one of the greats.

“You should have seen him run,” Rick told me in later years.  “Toward the end his knees were shot but he just kept running.”

He was thrilled beyond words when I was able to give him a football signed by Steve Grogan.   Tony Morano, who worked with me and knew how sick Rick was and how he loved the Pats, was going to be attending an affair hosted by the Patriots.  “Steve Grogan is going to be there. Would you like me to ask him to autograph a football for Rick?” He didn’t have to ask twice. The football in its glass display case sat on Rick’s bookshelf for years.

It was sometime around 1999 or 2000, when Rick asked if he could make a request of me.  

“I know you don’t really care about football, but do you think you could just sit with me while I watch?  Watching the games alone isn’t any fun.”

And so it began.  It didn’t take long before I was hooked.  Rick said he knew I wasn’t just humoring him when I began asking intelligent questions, and when I was able to spit out stats off the top of my head when he wondered out loud about something.

Steve knew I was really hooked when he phone Rick moments before one of the Super Bowl games was ready to start and Rick told him that he had tripped a few minutes earlier and thought he might have broken his foot and I told him to just prop it up on a pillow and I would put ice on it, and if it was still really bad by the end of the game I would drive him to the emergency room, but that we didn’t want to miss the whole game hanging around the ER waiting to be seen.  The foot was fine and the game was great. We laughed about it for years.

Football, fun as it is, isn’t really life, and I know that.  But it is one of the threads that adds texture to the fabric of my life, and gives me great pleasure from August to February of every year.  I eagerly anticipate each game. With a big bowl of popcorn on my lap and a cold Diet Coke at my elbow, I smile, I cheer, I howl, and I yell, scaring the hell out of the cat who runs for cover at the first play.  And I wish that Rick were here to enjoy it with me.

And the autographed football?  I gave it to Steve at the collation after Rick’s wake.  There is no one in this world Rick would rather have seen get it.