Super Sunday

I feel like the only person in the Bay Area who isn't watching the Super Bowl. The only time I ever followed football was in high school, and that was because I knew all the guys and had a hopeless crush on the football captain (sigh). In college (Michigan State) I lived in the same dorm as all the football players, but they had their own dining room and weren't in any of my classes. Games were free, so I did go to some my freshman year. At the University of Wisconsin our team had a several-year- long losing streak. My grandfather and aunt watched football on t.v. with my grandmother's scoffs in the background: "All they do is run and jump on each other, run and jump on each other." My mom was an orthopedic nurse, so she never would have let my brothers play football -- she'd seen too much.  I watched my best friend's son play for Piedmont Hills High School a few times -- the fans were the most interesting part -- but as a parent, I winced every time anyone fell or was tackled.

My dad preferred baseball, and I was an avid Detroit Tigers fan in fifth and sixth grade. I was fascinated by the stats, having just learned to divide and do percentages. I've been to one or two A's games since coming to California -- that was more about the companionship than the game.  At least, having played softball in gym class, as a perpetual left fielder who prayed the ball would never come my way, I understood the lingo. The sound of the play-by-play on the radio still brings back the atmosphere of kid-summers.

Ice hockey is another matter. If tickets weren't so expensive I'd go to the Sharks games. I remember going to one hockey game in Toledo as a kid, but I really became a hockey fan at the University of Wisconsin, where tickets were cheap for students and I used my season tickets to drum up dates! The 1980 Winter Olympic team was packed with names I knew. Hockey players seem more human to me, less bulky. I also like the speed of the game, no long time-outs or leisurely inning switch overs. And the "show" in between periods is a Zamboni! For me, the gracefulness of ice skating and the way the players get up in one motion after falling down seems magical. When I fall, I lie there!