Football - America's Sport?
E-Mail   by Blake Pirtle  Bio/Address

    Hey sports fans, now I know I told you in my last column that I would bless you with a column on the sport of playing card.  Well, I promise that soon you will get that.   Football season is at its height so I think I need to write about football first.
    First of all, let me tell you all that I myself am a very depressed sports fan.  My baseball team had a terrible year, my NASCAR driver, Jeff Gordon, is himself having a disappointing year.  He has won 6 races, but is only 6th in the points race for the Winston Cup Championship.  And my football team, well damn, I don't even know where to begin on my Denver Broncos!!  To start, they are the defending World Champions and they are 0 and 4 - have not won a game yet this year!!
    Now, I knew it would be a tough year, when John Elway retired, but never thought that we would be 0 and 4, and it just got worse because we lost the NFL's 1998 MVP, Terrell Davis.  He blew out his knee and is done for the year!!  My Broncos will not make it back to the Super Bowl and probably will not even make the playoffs.  But I will always be a committed fan.
    I don't know if many of you feel the same way about football as I do?   I just can't explain the feelings that come over me at the start of the football season.  Come Sunday mornings, it's like a high for I am so into it.
    Here in prison it is one of few things that everyone looks forward to.   Everyone has their teams, so there is a lot of talk back-and-forth on how you think they will do, who's hurt etc.  And there is a lot of grief given to bad teams that are not doing so well.  I myself have been hearing all of that!!
    There is a little bit of gambling on football in here, not a lot, maybe some stamps or a pack or two of smokes, and there are a few football polls that are all done for fun and in good taste!!  I think that most all prisoners agree that football is the most enjoyable sport to watch or partake in.  Who cares if you lose a few stamps or packs of smokes, as long as you had fun in the thick of the battle,.   It does not matter if your team did good or not.
    The Super Bowl is the only thing that this prison shuts down for. No, not Christmas, Thanksgiving, Easter etc.  But come Super Bowl Sunday the prison makes special arrangements for those that don't have their own TVs to be able to go to one of the dayrooms and watch the game.  They hold the prison count off until halftime, and they serve a special meal of cold-cuts, baked beans, chips, fruit, some type of dessert, that is passed out to us so we can eat in our cells, and not miss any of the game!!
    Now some of you out there reading this might find it strange that the prison would go to such extremes over a sporting event, and in some ways it is strange.   But as a true sports fan, I love it and think it's great.
    A lot of people believe that baseball is America's sport.  Well, I disagree, I say that football is!!  Baseball was never really important to me for it was always only a summer time, good weather sport.  But football now will let it be 100* out or below zero and you could find us playing football - in the snow, rain, or burning sun - it doesn't matter at all.
    You need special terrain and a lot of players to get a game of baseball going.   But not football - get 3 to 4 people interested and you can play.  Let it be in the park, our front yard, the street, or even the parking lot of a closed store. I remember as kids we even used to play tackle football in our living room.  Just move the coffee table, some of the chairs, roll up a bunch of socks for an inside ball, and get after it.  Of course my parents put a stop to it after a few dozen really bad rug burns, broken bones and split open heads.
    Besides football being able to be played anywhere at any time of the year I also feel it is more of a team sport than any other.  You have your individual superstars in football like you do in all other sports.  But unlike in most other sports they will not have very good success if the team around them does not perform well and at their best.
    Unlike baseball and so many other sports, football was something that I loved long before my life here in prison.  Now we are 5 weeks into the 1999 season and I myself do not have a clue who the dominant teams are this year.  It is just going to be one of those surprising and unpredictable years.  So sit back and enjoy!!

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