COLUMN: A ‘Sound of Music’ Super Bowl: Von Trapp family vs. the Colts
The Super Bowl is upon us again, and that means I’ve got another week of pretending like I know what football is about.
I am sure there is an art in football. All of the running, ducking, throwing, and hitting comes from somewhere and leads to something. But as far as I’m concerned, it is just an excuse for men to date each other when the task of getting along with their wives and girlfriends becomes too much.
It gives men something to lord over women. They may be better looking, more talented, and surprisingly willing to put up with you and give birth to your children, but they can’t understand why or how men put on tight pants, helmets, and pads to run through a field and hit each other.
And while we’re on the topic of running through a field, isn’t the whole thing a little like a PG-13 version of “The Sound of Music?” Men are afraid to admit this, of course, because women understand “The Sound of Music.” And while the rules of football are a little sketchy to me, it helps me if I imagine it as a game of keep-away between the Von Trapps and the Nazis. I know that sentence is going to get me beat up next time I’m on campus, but it is time to come clean.
This is because I am not alone. There are other men, like myself, who don’t know anything about football. And I don’t think that all of them are anemic teen indie rockers with disaffected scowls and tight t-shirts. Believe it or not, it may be one of your close friends who doesn’t know a thing about football. Sure, they may cheer, drink, and yell with you on Sunday afternoon, but come Sunday night they are Googling the game just like I am because they still aren’t sure who won.
The Super Bowl compounds these problems. It isn’t just another football game. It is held on Sunday every year because it is the American religion. And trying to glean enough information about the game from the internet and from eavesdropping to convincingly hold a conversation with your butch friends is like trying to hold a conversation with your girlfriend about last night’s “Trading Spaces” episode. Saying that you liked the room just isn’t going to cut it.
And so there are two male cultures in America: One that reveres football and one that pretends to revere football. And while that first group is hurting from the celebration or defeat of yesterday, the second group is going to be hurting when their friends realize they are posing and beat them up. The Super Bowl brings nothing but pain. Whether you woke up this morning with a hangover, a body cast, or a scarred ego, you are a victim of what has grown to become the Iraq of the sports world.
But, despite all of that, we watched it. We all tuned in, we all picked a team, and we all kept the makers of Little Smokies in business for another year. And regardless of how we approached it, we all came to together to love, hate, or show indifference towards the same thing. If President Bush has taught me anything, it is that bringing a country together around a questionable cause isn’t easy. And anything that succeeds there, whether it be a football game or a movie about a singing family running from the Nazis, can’t be entirely bad.
Zach Pendleton is a senior majoring in
English. Comments and questions can be sent to zpendleton@cc.usu.edu.