The Most Wonderful Time of the Year
I don’t mean the holiday season. I mean football season!
Professional football. College football. High School football. Pee Wee football. I love it all. But I tend to prefer pro football.
My NFL awakening occurred when I was a young boy in the 1970’s. The team of that decade was the Pittsburgh Steelers. It was easy to root for a team with players like Franco Harris, Lynn Swan, Jack Lambert, Met Blount and of course “Mean” Joe Greene. Throughout those Super Bowl winning seasons their quarterback was Terry Bradshaw. Since I was a kid, I assumed that he and I were related somehow. So, I became a fan and my love of black and gold remains firmly in place.
At the Pro Football Hall of Fame!
Last year I attended my first Pittsburgh Steelers home game, and it was awesome. During our few days in Pittsburgh, I met fans who had come in for the game from all over the country, which made the entire experience even more enjoyable.
Two years ago, my wife took me to the Pro Football Hall of Fame in Canton, OH. This was also a lot of fun!
As someone who has lived in Metro Atlanta for over 30 years, I am also an Atlanta Falcons fan. But at times they make it difficult. Candidly, I don’t think I have fully recovered from the Super Bowl debacle from a few years ago. I am sure that I am not alone in this feeling. But I won’t dwell on that. I start every season with high hopes for my Dirty Birds. This season will be no exception. We’ll see how long it lasts.
Early arrival at a Steelers home game!
I enjoy college football as well. Although I’m still not completely sure how the Transfer Portal or the Name, Image and Likeness (NIL) systems work. At the Division I level, most of the athletes are very talented and the pageantry around college football is unrivaled.
During the first five seasons of Georgia State University (my graduate school alma mater) football, we were season ticket holders. They initially played their home games at the old Georgia Dome, and attending was a lot of fun and easy to get to via MARTA. The Panthers now play in the reconfigured former Turner Field, which is very nice. And we still try to get to one or two home games a year.
I haven’t attended a High School football game in years. While I do appreciate Friday Night Lights, during most weeks, by the time Friday evening comes around, the thought of hanging out in a crowd at a football game does not overcome the appeal of sitting in my easy chair at home.
It has been even longer since I attended a pee wee football game. But watching the little kids play was always a hoot for me. Although once, when my nephew was around 10 years old, I was watching a game where he was playing running back. On one play he had broken through the line and had some good open field running. Then, all of sudden he was close-lined tackled, and for a second, I was horrified. But he popped right back up and trotted back to his team’s huddle, so I didn’t worry about it. To underscore how long ago that has been, that same nephew will be getting married within the next few weeks.
But that anecdote highlights a larger and irrefutable point. Football at every level is a violent game. Consequently, many contemporary parents are opting out of allowing their kids to play tackle football. Flag football is an alternative. But it is not the same game. Not even close. And for those of us who are football fans, we must come to terms with the notion that the violence of the game is part of the attraction. I like to use the term “controlled violence.” But it is violence nonetheless. When large human beings collide into each other at high rates of speed, people will get hurt.
Football can be "controlled violence" sometimes. Photo: Getty, Context: "Tampa Bay Buccaneers wide receiver Mike Evans was involved in a “scary” collision in his first game back from injury," per The U.S. Sun.
Today the equipment is much better than it was in years past. And certain rules have been put into place to make the game safer for the protection of players. I suppose more can be done at the margins. But the nature of the game remains the same.
As a kid I played a lot of football in the neighborhood, which some might call sandlot football. I remember at least a couple of occasions after getting “my bell rung” when I went home a little woozy. I probably had concussions and didn’t even know what it was.
By the time high school rolled around I was way too skinny to play at the varsity level. I would have literally been crushed. If only I weighed then what I weigh now? I like to think I would have had the smarts and mental toughness to play quarterback, but I still probably lacked the arm strength to throw the deep ball accurately and consistently. More than likely, I would have played strong safety with a linebacker’s mentality, and derived great pleasure from tackling people.
Irrespective of the downsides, I still love the game. And soon my Sunday afternoons will be spoken for. The ideal Sunday would evolve like this:
At noon I would watch one of the pre-game shows. Probably FOX NFL Sunday where my cousin Terry Bradshaw is one of the hosts. Then I would be primed for the 1pm game. I would fall asleep in my easy chair about halfway through the second quarter. Then wake up late in the third or early in the fourth quarter to watch the end of the game. Then I would be rested and ready for the 4:30pm game and have enough reserve energy to last until halftime of the Sunday Night game. A perfect day!
The anticipation is building. Football season is indeed the most wonderful time of the year. I can’t wait!
My "cousin," Terry Bradshaw's, jersey at the Pro Football Hall of Fame! Photo: Erik Drost
Steve Bradshaw
Steve Bradshaw served for eight years on the DeKalb County, Georgia Board of Commissioners. He is also a former corporate sales executive, adjunct college professor, and US Army officer.
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