Football not always a score

Now, in the midst of football season when the Panthers have won their latest game, I think… Now, in the midst of football season when the Panthers have won their latest game, I think it’s the perfect time to get something off my chest — I don’t care about football.

I’ve always been apathetic when it comes to this sport. I’m a fair-weather Steelers fan, which is odd for someone who has lived in Pittsburgh since age seven. I don’t own any Steelers merchandise or apparel. The last time I watched an entire Super Bowl game was years ago in middle school, and only because ‘NSync was performing at halftime. When, on rare occasions, I do watch football with a bunch of friends, I’m always the one with the delayed reaction to touchdowns, jumping up and down five seconds after everyone else.

I only attended one of my high school’s football games and I barely glanced at the field, spending the entire time chatting with my friends in the stands. Come to think of it, I’m pretty sure we left early.

Dare I say it — I’ve never been to a single Panthers game. Yes, I know I’m a disgrace to Pitt, but college football doesn’t even begin to pique my interest. I don’t get fired up over the Panthers’ rivalry with Penn State…or is it WVU? When friends express their excitement over the most recent Panthers win, I find myself faking enthusiasm. As they go over the plays and the game’s key moments, I just smile and nod, desperately trying to think of how to change the topic of conversation. And when I find out on a dreary Monday that Pitt had lost, I pretend to mourn along with the rest of campus.

And you can be sure that I’m always clueless when it comes to who the Panthers are playing. My friend from Michigan State University emailed me a few weeks ago to brag that “my Spartans beat your Panthers.” At first, I thought she was speaking in code, no doubt to thwart government e-mail spying. A few rereads later and I finally realized that she was referring to the recent football game. But I had to look up the Panthers’ game schedule online, just to be sure.

Maybe my indifference is because of a traumatizing flag football experience I had during gym class in elementary school one day. As I stood there in the field, my belt of flags wrapped tightly around my waist, picking dandelions and gazing at the bright blue sky thoughtlessly, I suddenly heard my fellow teammates shouting my name. “Catch the ball!” they screamed. I looked up and, despite the blinding sun, I easily seized the soft nerf ball, as if angels flew from heaven itself and placed it into my hands.

But before I had a chance to bask in all my football-catching glory, my teammates were ferociously instructing me to run. They demanded, “Touchdown, Elham, GO!” Their threatening voices pushed me to run in some random direction, my yellow flags waving in the wind. Suddenly, I felt a slight pull. I glanced over my shoulder and saw one of the biggest, most frightening boys in my class running after me, his eyes full of vengeance as he made his many attempts to grab my flags. Finally, he took hold of one of the flying yellow strands and aggressively yanked to rip it off.

But the flag never came off and the force of his pull brought me to the ground headfirst instead. It’s not like I just fell flat on my face. I slid across the turf like something out of a cartoon. I finally lifted myself up, desperately trying not to cry. My nose was bleeding and my mouth was filled with grass. I had scratches across my forehead and my head was throbbing. And while I was sent home early that day, the worst part was that the big, bulky boy never apologized!

Or perhaps my apathy has something to do with not understanding the game. I don’t know why, but I can’t comprehend the sport for the life of me. Maybe I have a short attention span, but football just doesn’t hold my interest for more than two minutes. This is probably because the players are never in constant motion. I can’t follow their progress on the screen or on the field. The way I see it, the basic makeup of a football game is that the players start running, a distant whistle blows, and they stop, only to start again exactly where they left off. Teams are awarded a random number of points based on how fast they can stop at the whistle, like a violent, manlier version of musical chairs.

No matter what the reason, I’m an oddity. Surrounded by people who live and breathe for the game, and being a long-time resident of the city whose team won the last Super Bowl, I simply can’t bring myself to care about this sport. All I see is a weirdly shaped ball and huge, monstrous men. I mean, I’m sure there’s more to the game than that, but I’m just not concerned enough to find out.

Do you have the urge to shake Elham out of her football apathy? E-mail her at elk23@pitt.edu.