Freaky Friday Night Lights

If you have been following along then you know that this year I will be attempting to have more order in my life and this blog. You also know that Fridays will be all about switching things up and that this month is about football. Thus I am interested in what the other side of the street thinks about Football. Rather, I should say the other side of the pond. I personally love football. Specifically I’m a fan of High School and NCAA football. My favorite all time team is the Oklahoma University Sooners. Somehow we got another strange upside down and confusing season full of upsets that led to OU getting a shot at the NCAA Championship again. Of course this is all straight forward, so where is the switch?

Well, over in the rest of the world football is what we call soccer here in America. It actually makes more sense. I never did get why we call a sport that typically focuses on holding and throwing the ball “football.” Soccer, henceforth called football, is a huge success in most of the world. Their football superstars rival the stars of any sport here in America. Despite all of that I’ve never really thought about the game much. I played one season of soccer, fullback if I remember correctly. I think I would have had more fun as a center or forward. I don’t think I would really want to be a goalie though. Way too much responsibility there, even if it is the only position that is allows to use hands.

I think the main reason that I prefer American football is the same reason I don’t really get into hockey. A great hockey game is usually won 1-0 or 2-1 or whatever other very low score, and the same is true for football. American football, on the other hand, is scored differently. Of course the lowest possible score is 2 points. It is impossible to score only a single point until you get a touchdown. Each touchdown is worth 6 points. This means that the scores get much bigger faster and that makes it seem more exciting to me, even if the final score is 12-7, which probably is only a total of 3 scoring drives and a single extra point.

There is also the hitting factor. In football it is usually frowned upon to have more physical contact than needed. This isn’t to say there aren’t hard hits and “tackles.” Anything excessive, though, can earn you a black card. In American football, however, the harder the hit the better the game. I still remember one of the hardest hits I’ve ever seen. Super Bowl XXXII in 1998 John Elway got hit hard 2xs at 37 then jumped up and went back for more. Here is a link to an article on the hit, http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/espn25/story?page=moments/68. I’m not saying it is the hardest hit, just the hardest I’ve seen.

Here in the states football is starting to become popular. I’m not sure it will ever surpass American football in the South, but it is definitely growing in popularity. Especially women’s football, which is significantly more popular than women’s American football. I knew in theory that there had to be a women’s American football league, I had just never seen any games. Actually I still haven’t seen any games but in looking into it I have found it does exist. Maybe next week that will be my flip, but with a twist based on a conversation that I had with one of my teens earlier this week.

Let me know what your thoughts are on the football/American football debate. What side of the fence are you on? I know several people view this site from outside the US so please convince me why football is better.