On Our Way To Crazy

Football wasn’t a very big part of my life growing up. Even though I went to a large high school in Texas with a good team and lived with a Dallas Cowboys loving dad, I never got into it. It was too complicated, the games were too long, there were better things to do.

I knew going into it that being with Aaron was going to add a lot more football to my life. His dad was a coach, all three boys played in high school and his brother played in college. It’s not just a passive hobby in their house. It’s a lifestyle.

I’m not sure exactly when things started to change. The first couple of years, I think, it was just something Aaron did. I knew (roughly) when the season started. I knew we would miss church if the Cowboys played at noon and were on TV. I knew how hard it was to catch a Cowboys game in Nashville (though I didn’t know what I know now about AFC/NFC markets and blackout games and stuff like that.)

But as time has passed, my knowledge has grown. The past couple of seasons, I’ve known not only known the date the season starts, but when and who the Cowboys play. I’ve spent Saturdays watching the draft. I know who is in our division and which games are important and that we hate the Redskins above all. I know that after we beat the Colts on Sunday the 1972 Dolphins got together and drank champagne.

And I don’t just know about the Cowboys. I know about football. Now, I’m no expert, but keep in mind that in high school I didn’t know (or care) how downs worked. Now I know what a safety is. (That has, for some reason, been my go-to point when talking about how much football I know. Surely I must be an expert – I know what a safety is!) I can follow along relatively unassisted by Aaron (though he loves to answer my questions, sometimes with diagrams), but I do need the yellow line and the box at the top telling me where they are on the field and which down we’re on.

Football has gone from being something I could not possibly care less about to something I actually enjoy. I still fall asleep during games I don’t care about, and I almost always prefer How I Met Your Mother to Monday Night Football. But I’m learning. I can yell at the TV with the best of them now.