The Family Football Role Reversal

As a kid, I always loved baseball. I used to sit up with my grandmother, who.lived with us, and listen to the games on the radio. I wasn't so keen on basketball and football. My dad however felt it was important I learn about both sports. If nothing else, he said, a girl should always know enough about sports to carry on a conversation with her boyfriend or husband. He was a very patient man, and watched game after game with me, answering all my questions, however silly.

It worked. I learned to converse intelligently on most sports, and learned to love football, though not as much as baseball.  In fact over the years I learned to at least the basics of most sports.

Naturally I married a musician who had no interest in sports whatsoever. (You saw this coming, right?)

My husband's opinion of football is that it was invented so marching bands had something to do in the fall.  Ditto for basketball and pep bands in winter.  Since other sports have no use for bands he sees no reason for them.

Naturally the irony machine being fully functional, our first born was a boy who loved baseball from and early age and football when he got a little older.  And even our second born, the dancer girl, has begun to take an interest in football, if only, you got it, to talk to the boys at school. Leaving my poor husband alone on Sundays in the fall and whenever the Indians are playing.

When it comes to baseball, because the boy actually plays the sport, he has tried to pick up the  basics over the years. He knows balls from strikes and where the position players are.  But his interest is totally confined to the games his son is participating in. The rest is  of no use to him at all.

So now Super Bowl Sunday is rolling around again and he is one of those few who aren't interested even casually in the game, the half time show, or the commercials.  And because he is a guy who feels that way he is even more of a minority. He will endure hours of mostly incomprehensible (to him) monologues from the boy about the various aspects of the game. The  daughter might or might not  watch the whole game depending on the excitement level. Poor man isn't even that excited about the pizza we will have delivered before the game, so he will mostly hide in his den all day, until the madness is over.

And then he will have a whole week of peaceful bliss before pitchers and catchers report to Spring Training.