Earlier this month, my husband and I went to visit his son, who, as well as finishing up his MSc also coaches D2 college football. Part of that trip, of course, was a football game.

Now, when I say I’m not a sports-educated girl, I mean it. I was known, when I worked full time, to have to remind my colleagues regularly that they did not want me filling a last-minute hole in a foursome. Every spring when golf season came around, I would muse that golf lessons should be my company funded professional education for the year. “Which end of the stick did I use?” I would ask. 

While it wasn’t quite that bad, I did not grow up in a team sports family. I did not raise team sports children (I wrote about that here). While two of my three have taken up running (and one, a recent triathlon), I don’t think any of them have even considered being part of a sports team. I’ve learned enough about baseball over the years to get by – it was almost a necessity living in Toronto – and I can still remember the cheers and garbage can lid banging for both of the Blue Jays’ World Series wins in the early 1990s. 

What do I know about football?

A year living abroad taught me enough about soccer football to be slightly conversant, and I had the good fortune to see at least half a dozen (the only half a dozen!) hockey games in a corporate box in Montreal, but I confess to having been happy during the years away from the corporate machine where I didn’t feel I had do read the sports page headlines to make small talk at the executive table! Nowhere along the way did I ever learn anything about North American football – other than that the Canadian and American versions were slightly different. To say I was a little nervous is an understatement.

But back to the mini-holiday. We reluctantly headed to the US (family first, right?!), which was an experience in itself in this era of not-so-friendly politics between our countries. We were very amused when employees at a local store offered their sincere apologies when they learned where we were from.

Finally, there was the dreaded football game. I think the last football game I every want to (and probably my first), was at Norm Perry Park in Sarnia, when I was in high school. Needless to say, a long time ago.

I learned many things in the three hours that followed. I had absolutely no idea that a football team was so big. I was told that this particular team was bigger than usual, but to me it looked like an army was on the field. Movies and books had taught me about marching bands, but I’d never seen one before. I’m not sure I would have the coordination to march and play at the same time! It turns out, football is much more of a “stop and start” game than I realized. Doing that in the cold must explain the number of injuries, and consequently the number of players.

The game slowly sank into my brain and by the end, I was beginning to understand when it was going well – and when it was going badly – for our team. We defeated the visiting team, but my newfound knowledge was the real win.

Is another football game in my future? Probably not, but it’s good to know I’m not a complete neophyte any more