Hate the Player, Not the Game

Football season is upon us. I am a football fan. I enjoy watching games and rooting for my favorite teams. I have many friends who do not feel the same way and I understand, because I wasn’t always a fan either.

But, there are two things that make all spectator sports, not just football, great.

One, there is real life, real time drama. Screw reality TV. You want reality TV? Watch any basketball game during March Madness. Each and every game is struggle, desire, ecstatic joy and unbelievable heartbreak – the entire spectrum of human emotion. Yeah, and it’s not edited, choreographed or scripted like “reality” television. 

Two, not only is it okay to hate, it’s expected! This is one of the few times in life when it is entirely okay to arbitrarily decide that you love or hate a team even though you know nothing about them.

You might be watching a game and one team has red jerseys and the other team has blue. You hate the color blue, so you know what? Fuck the blue team! Why do you love the red team? You don’t have to, you just hate that fucking blue team!

And once you have someone to root for (or against) all you have to do is sit back, drink beer with your friends and yell shit at the TV. And, come on, you can’t tell me that’s not a good time.

And if that’s still not good enough, well, I leave it to the old adage, “a picture’s worth a thousand words.”