On any given Sunday, anything can happen.

Back in my dating days, men-of-a-certain-type would always tell me I was an awesome catch after learning that I am, quote, into sports. Which I am. I like playing sports, I like talking about sports, I like watching sports on TV, and I have even been guilty of memorizing bizarre sports trivia for the purpose of spontaneously repeating it at cocktail parties.

"Hey!" I will suddenly shout after three Manhattans and to no one in particular, "Did you guys know that Tim Raines is the only player in history to hit back-to-back home runs on his birthday?!"

But for all the credit I might get for having known the infield fly rule at age seven, I also have a confession to make:

Football, that acme of the American sporting landscape, has always made me go a bit cross-eyed.

This is mostly the fault of my upbringing, courtesy of parents who were highly invested in baseball and soccer but who mostly watched the Superbowl for the commercials (oh God, there's that east-coast liberal elitism everyone is always talking about!). I also blame it on my high school, whose team was so unwatchably terrible that the administration eventually decided it wasn't worth the embarrassment and shut down the football program altogether, and my college, which didn't even have a football field, let alone a group of burly be-spandexed dudes to run around on it.

But regardless of the cause, this guilt is mine: I managed to reach my mid-twenties without any idea of how football actually works.

I have since tried to remedy this, but it's been a slow process punctuated by frequent periods of confusion and occasional abject mortification, because something about watching a game in which I have no goddamn idea what is going on makes me completely fucking crazy.

My early attempts to to learn went something like this:

A helpful friend and I sit down to watch a football game on TV.

Helpful friend: Football is actually very easy to understand.
Me: Okay.
Helpful friend: See, right now, Denver is on offense.
Me: (staring intently at screen) Okay.

Play begins.

Me: (increasing confusion punctuated by flailing and pointing) Wait, what? Where's the football? Does that one man actually touch the other man's balls? Who's that guy? Why is that man running? Does he have the football? Does that guy have the football? Which team is Denver? WHERE IS THE FOOTBALL I CANNOT SEE THE FOOTBALL.

Helpful friend: ...I think we should watch something else.


In this way, I did eventually learn enough about basic play to make my questions more specific ("Why do all football players have such shapely butts?" "Why did the referee just hurl a towel onto the field?" "WHERE IS THE FOOTBALL?") until finally, finally -- like, as of last week -- I had reached a point wherein I could watch a game with a reasonable comprehension of what-the-hell was going on (and without spouting questions like some sort of interrogatory robot with a circuit-board malfunction.)

And all of this was a very good thing. Because this weekend, I attended my very first college football game ever, along with Brad and all of his friends.

Friends who went to a college with a football team.

Friends who can therefore watch a game without intermittently shrieking that WHERE IS THE FOOTBALL I CANNOT SEE THE FOOTBALL.

I was semi-anxious that I might make an ass of myself due to my lack of general football knowledge, but at the half, things were going pretty well -- I had only accidentally cheered for the wrong team once (and only because both teams were wearing the same colors! which would confuse anybody!), and my one outburst had been a totally-acceptable shout of, "But what does that MEAN?!" after the defense got called off-sides. (Response from the guy in front of me: "Don't worry about it.")

And so it was that I came to be standing with an acquaintance of Brad's, drinking deliciously cold beer in the lovely autumnal sunshine, and feeling quite pleased with myself.

"This is fun!" I said.
"Yeah! And I can't believe Brad got married!" said the acquaintance.
"Yeah!" I said, because if there is any other response to that particular remark, I do not know what it is.
"Did you guys meet in college?" he asked.
"No, in the city," I said.
"Where did you go to school?"
I told him.
"Oh," he said, "so did you guys have a football team?"
"No," I replied, "in fact, this is my very first college football game ever!"
"Really! You've never been to a college football game before?" he said.
"Nope," I said. "
"It's great, isn't it?" he said. "Isn't it awesome?"


And then he threw up all over himself.


College football: Yes, it really is awesome.