Me talking American football?

Self Editor’s Note: The greatest thing about great storytellers is that they inspire Our Man in America. Here is how one story got him  blogging about sports, something he thought he had very little interest in. It’s from Beasley’s Blog, owned, managed and operated by one of Our Man’s  journalism school classmate, Stephanie Beasley.

One of the things I do every so often is visit my friends’ blogs. Today it was my friend Stephanie Beasley’s blog, Beasley’s Blog. (Yes, that does sound redundant but — trust me — it’s grammatically correct). Let me tell you a little bit about Stephanie. She is an African American from somewhere in the Midwest — Ohio, I think.

The girl loves Brazil. Just like foulmouthed rappers punctuate their lyrics with the F-word and the N-word, Stephanie throws the name of Brazil’s capital,  Rio, between every word that comes out of her mouth. OK, I’m exaggerating, but you get the point.

So when I visited her blog today, I was drawn to the headline, “Am I ready for some football?”

The post is about football alright, but not soccer — the kind of football I expected a lover Brazil to write about. She was talking about that American sport that mandates that players wear helmets, dress in spandex, and play in positions like “tight end” and “wide receiver.”

Like me, Stephanie seems to have very little or no interest in a football sport in which  most players never kick the ball with their feet. What made her post interesting, though, is that she talked about American football in the context of the relationship with her father. (I’m obsessed with narratives of parent-child relationships).

Two weeks later, we went to Oktoberfest. Again, it was a game day and, again, my father was wearing his [Cleveland Browns] jersey. This time there were plenty of other people donned in various team regalia. There were the staples: Browns, Bengals, and Ohio State. I even saw a few brave Pittsburgh Steelers fans. After filling up on strudel, brats, sauerkraut, and pretzels, we sat down at one of the picnic tables across from a nice-looking married couple. The husband’s face lit up when he caught sight of the jersey and the next thing that I knew, he and my father were having an extended conversation about the Browns’ seasonal outlook. Before long he was buying my dad beers, his wife was sharing her chocolate covered strawberries with me and we were all just like life-long friends.

Stephanie inspired me by making me realize that you can take something as boring (my opinion) as American football  and make it interesting by adding human beings to it. (Judging from those concussion-causing tackles, I have concluded that football players are inhuman).  Stephanie’s story  got me running to the computer to blog about sports, something I thought I had no interest in.

She had me thinking about the San Francisco 49ers.  I have always owned a 49ers T-shirt or jersey.  But I have never been to a 49ers game, even after 15 years in the San Francisco Bay Area. In fact, I can’t even remember the last time I watched a 49ers game on TV. And even more embarrassing, if you asked me who the 49ers quarterback is, I might be tempted to guess Jeff Garcia. Is Jerry Rice still their wide receiver?

Nevertheless,  I consider myself a 49ers fan. My loyalty began during the 1994-95 Super Bowl, my first in the United States. I had been in country for less than a month, so as I watched them play, I had no idea what the heck was going on.  Why does a touchdown count for seven points? What’s with the extra point after the touchdown? What’s a “field goal?” The uncle I lived with and his friends were too much  into the game to explain.

The 49ers won that Super Bowl. I can’t even tell you who they played without Googling it. But I followed the 49ers and learned the game during the years that followed that Super Bowl win. I lost faith when the Green Bay Packers molested them again and again. (Damn you, Brett Favre! The 49ers haven’t been right since then).

Regardless my dormancy as a fan, my 49ers T-shirt is a great conversation starter. As my friend Stephanie observed, a team jersey can buy your a beer. What I admire about American sportsfanship is that you don’t even have to belong to the same team to share a beer. Trust me even those hard-knock Raiders fans of my surrogate  hometown of Oakland have bought me a beer.

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