SOME THOUGHTS ABOUT THE GAME OF PROFESSIONAL FOOTBALL

I have always loved the game of football. I was never more than an amateur athlete but I loved sports, the  thrill of competing, and the game itself. I tried track, but found I lacked the drive and the physical endurance to run the Mile and I lacked the speed for the shorter distances. I liked baseball and softball, but my one summer of softball competition on the Gospel Trumpet Company team in the 1945 Anderson Summer League quickly proved to me that I lacked the eye coordination to hit fast pitching.

I played football throughout hi-school. My one moment of glory came during my Junior Year when I won a quarterback position on the Junior Varsity during my Junior Year. It was a thrill for me to ride the team bus to Kalamazoo and play on the turf inside of Western University's Waldo Stadium--a real university stadium and the home of Western's State Hi-School Bronco's. We lost that game but I was at least playing the game. 

Later that year we rode our bus the forty-some miles south to Niles, on the Indiana state line. This game proved hilariously disastrous as Niles stomped us 44-0. My one moment of potential redemption came when I was able to hurl one of those Hail Mary passes as far down the field as I could throw it. It arced high in the sky and pointed downward toward Bob Tortenson and a sure touchdown. He saw it coming his direction, and keeping his eyes skyward, he scurried toward the goal line - only for the ball to drop through his arms and on the ground--one big fizzle as a quarterback. I won a Football Letter during my senior year but I did it playing a substitute blocking Guard on a state championship team. So much for my athletic abilities.

There was never any doubt that I was a rabid football fanatic during my younger adult days as a young pastor. Pastoring a church in an area where the Dallas Cowboys reigned supreme, we all joined the Dandy Don club and became devotees of Don Meredith, then the hottest thing in professional football, and Coach Tom Landry who was both a Coach and a Christian who practiced what he preached. So, it is with some surprise when I view my present disillusionment and disdain with professional football.

WHY DO I LACK ANY INTEREST IN A GAME I HAVE GREATLY LOVED ALL MY LIFE. I think it is this: Professional Football has come to be ALL about competing between network commentators and very little about the competitition and thrill of the game itself. I want to tell the Network Wisemen to SHUT UP  and let me listen to the game. I am not interested in being entertained by their wisdom. I do not want my time as a football fan gobbled up with regurgitated commentary wisdom. I want to watch the game and be allowed to be a football fan instead of another notch in the rating of a Network Commentator.

It will never happen, so good bye footfall. You were once a pleasant past time but you have become an over-ripe banana, mostly mush and no longer edible.