Laces Out

They call baseball “America’s Pastime” but we all know it’s really football that gets this country going. Everyone watches the Super Bowl where as half the country can’t even remember who won the World Series last year. Football combines strength, strategy, and awesome touchdown dances. For me, there are three main reasons why football is the best sport in America.

First, no sport has a better schedule than football. There are only 16 games in a season so you can easily watch your favorite team play all of its matchups. You can’t do that in basketball where the season is 82 games. It also means that all of the games matter. The first game of the Giants season is as important as its last. The Yankees, on the other hand, play 162 games and so no one starts to care until close to the playoffs. The other great thing about the football schedule is that all the games are on Sunday. Of course, this means you can’t do anything productive during the weekend, but I’m fine with that. And since Aviva works almost every Sunday night, I can watch as many games as I want without feeling bad that we haven’t hung out. Ah, The beauty of marriage.

The second best thing about the sport is fantasy football. Fantasy football is like make believe for adult males. It’s silly, it’s childish, and yet, it’s so much fun. Remember that feeling you got when you met Mickie Mouse at Disney. That’s kind of what it’s like when you draft your fake fantasy team. It’s pathetic, I know, but I don’t care. I’m gonna be out of commission for a good three months post transplant and football only take up one day but fantasy takes up a whole week.

Finally, 24 years ago I was born Jewish and was told at my bris that I couldn’t play contact sports. So when they discovered I had Crohn’s disease ten years later and told me the same thing, I didn’t really mind. Amazingly, though, football breeds a different type of person. When David Garrard, the starting quarterback on the Jacksonville Jaguars, was diagnosed with Crohn’s in 2004, it didn’t stop him from playing in the toughest game in sports. After losing over 30 pounds, Garrard decided to have surgery and the doctors removed over a foot of his large intestine. Unfortunately, though, the Crohn’s came back shortly after. Eventually, though, after finding the proper medicine, Garrard found a way to control the disease and gain back his weight. He is one of the top quarterbacks in the league and one of the top reasons why I love this sport. So are you ready for some football?