“Pointing out that the police did not find out about the incident until it was reported on television, the mayor said, “The hospital didn’t call and the Giants didn’t call, and the Giants should have picked up the phone right away, as good corporate citizens.”

He called it an outrage that the hospital did not notify the police after Burress showed up seeking treatment and said that prosecutors should “go after” the management of the hospital.”

Here’s what I don’t get: Plaxico Burress shot himself in the thigh.  True, he didn’t have a permit to carry a handgun.  But I think we can all agree that Plaxico has paid his debt to society.  My god, the man took a bullet for it!  Plaxico Burress is paying for his crime with not only physical pain and widespread embarrassment but the jeopardization of his professional career.

Leave Plaxico alone!

Once such industry is the financial industry. There are a lot of kids that I know, mainly people who went to school’s like SI, who started their professional careers as underlings at a variety of investment banking companies. Up until a few months ago, they were wearing Dockers and skipping along the Embarcadero in their boat shoes, with nary a care in the world. At least, this is how I imagine it must have been.

I don’t know how those kids are doing. Frankly, I don’t have much contact with them, or the banking industry. But now that the financial downturn has started to affect me, I’m starting to take the matter much more seriously.

That’s right, Economy. Things JUST GOT PERSONAL.

I know you may be asking, you three faithful readers of my sometime updated blog, what this has to do with football. And I’ll tell you. In these troubling financial times, there are a lot of career shifts. People get let go, other people get hired. Careers can turn on a dime, and this includes the careers of professional football players.

Lane Kiffin. D’Angelo Hall. Al Davis’ Mental Health. All three are Oakland Raider casualties of our national economic conditions. Cuts have to be made.

All I’m saying is, keep an eye out.  Entire teams may find themselves on the job market.  And once you start competing with former NFL players for your temp jobs…that’s when the real trouble begins.

Mike Nolan is now unemployed, and has been replaced by Mike Singleterry. So now we have two Bay Area NFL coaches out of work. Now I truly know that our current recession has taken its toll.

What are Mike Nolan and Lane Kiffin doing now? How do they spend their days? Do they still watch football? Is it too painful? These are all things that I want to know.

In actual football watching news, I saw the Raiders beat someone else (the Giants? Maybe the Steelers?) in overtime with a crazy-long field goal kick by that Eastern European fellow. I think this, given today’s political climate, is a sure sign for the upcoming rise of Communism.

I’m sure other things have happened. Don’t worry, I’m on it.

I would make some kind of quasi-commitment to basically pay attention to the world of football.

My reasons for doing so were manifold.  These reasons included providing myself with personal entertainment during the football season, bonding with numerous male members of my family and community, eschewing traditionally defined gender roles, and refraining from experiencing annoyance when 789 out of 800 cable channels were devoted to the pigskin.  (The remaining 11 channels have of course been devoted to further exploration of Sarah Palin’s bangs.)

Unfortunately, what has occurred during the past few weeks has been none other than a total disregard for the original pledge.  I believe that Lane Kiffin was fired for his work with the Raiders.  Brett Favre has been studying plays because he is on a new team.  People got knocked down and their helmets have been grabbed.  This represents pretty much the extent of my knowledge of the modern football happenings.

Citizens, I am not proud of my lack of effort.  I pledge to renew my original vigor for the game.  And it will start on Sunday.  I swear.

I know nobody’s perfect.

I know that humans are, by nature, fallible creatures.

But I think a person should feel safe to get up and leave the room to say, take a shower, in the first 5 minutes of the 4th quarter of a game where the Raiders have maintained a strong lead for the entirety of the previous three quarters, that this person should rest comfortably knowing that a professional football team can be counted on to maintain this lead to a victorious end.

In fact, I was so comfortable in my knowledge that the Raiders would win, I didn’t even think to ask how the game ended.

Rookie mistake.

It wasn’t until I showed up to A’s house later (I had watched the Oakland/Buffalo game with my Dad and brothers, who, incidentally, also like football) where he was watching highlights that I found out the disturbing truth.

The Raiders had fallen from grace at the last second, finally losing by one point. To a team with buffaloes painted on their helmets.  Buffaloes.

What are the Buffalo Bills, even?  What are bills?

I’ll tell you who’s gonna have some trouble paying the bills.  That ridiculously young Raiders coach, Lane Kiffin.  I would ask if he has a wife and kids to support, but I don’t think he’s yet of age to procreate.

Yesterday, I also learned that Monday night football is not even a thing anymore.  It’s only on ESPN!  What?  And that “are you ready for some football” song?  Gone!  How did I not know about this?

I also finally figured out what a “blitz” was, and what a “sack” meant.

And that players get fined for dancing.

I’ll be honest: the only reason I Googled “buckeyes” was to find out what exactly Buckeyes were so I could come up with a clever title for today’s post. I knew they were some kind of plant, and I had a strong suspicion that they were some kind of nut. Having now discovered that the Ohio buckeye derives its unflattering common name from the disagreeable odor generated from its flowers, or any other injured portion of its overall organic structure, the possibility for clever titles on a game featuring the Ohio Buckeyes seems endless.

At the start of the 2nd quarter, I told A that the Ohio Buckeyes were known for their disagreeable odor. In response, he mentioned the practical use of the USC team name–more specifically, what it was wrapped around.

On the basis of nomenclature alone, this game is already doomed.

It’s Ohio 3, USC 14 with 11 minutes left in the 2nd quarter. Already, this is less of a slaughter than the game I saw on Monday. A is growing increasingly more concerned day by day that each team he supports is destined for suckiness in the annals of football history. First the Bengals, then the Raiders, now the Buckeyes?

As for me, I’ve picked up a few things. None as dramatic as the day I learned what those bright orange sticks were for, or the day I found out what “first down” meant (this was the same day). It’s actually incredible how little I know about the game that has been transmitted to my living room every September through Whenever of my entire childhood.

I also know that that yellow handkerchief means there’s some kind of foul, and I’ve also learned that this handkerchief is often kept inside the crotchal zone of the white pants of the Refs on duty. Still, I have not learned to discern what causes the tossing of this yellow “flag.” Sometimes it is a false start, and sometimes it is offsides. Sometimes it is unnecessary roughness. There are various other reasons. Some day I will find out what they mean.

I find myself wondering how long it takes too put on the padding each players have. Are the pants so tight because they need to hold the padding in place?

I just asked A. He said I was right. Also, he said that flappy clothing would be unsafe. You know what else is unsafe? 250lb+ men wearing cleats and tackling each other at a full run.

The Raiders game was fun, and not only because there was gin involved. I should mention that, unfortunately, half of our gin supply was sequestered at the gate of the stadium. Apparently security is especially high at the Oakland Coliseum (who knew?) and the guards patted everyone down with a fervor that the TSA only wishes they could instill in their airport security employees. A walked into the stadium with a small flask of gin in each sock. Unfortunately, one of his socks was Raided.

We made our way to the top of the coliseum, which was basically at the 50 yard line, although I guess technically it was the 35th but it seemed central enough. We were right above where the team runs out amid the energetic pom pom shuffling of the Raiderettes–whose name, incidentally, is a bit demeaning if you ask me. They should be the Co-Raiders. There’s no room for pejorative nicknames in professional sports. Just ask Jared Lorenzen. (Actually, if Jared Lorenzen’s in any kind of confined space, there’s not much room for anything…)

An update on this live-blogging NFL sports report: With 2:49 left in the 2nd quarter, its Ohio 3, USC 21. Lookin’ good, Buckeyes.

The coach for the Buckeyes is a good looking, distinguished man. A little on the short side.

Momentary distraction–back to the Raiders game. Reasonably buzzed, with a delicious Coliseum Dog in my belly (they ARE delicious, I could have had three) I witnessed the decided triumph of the Denver Broncos over the Oakland Raiders. I also witnessed the decided trouncing of one fan over another in an audience fight, but after the police got involved there wasn’t much to see. Typical.

We ended up leaving at the end of the third quarter, after seeing the Raider’s first (and, if memory serves, only) touchdown of the night. After a momentous BART ride home, A and I returned safe and sound to his apartment, where I learned (a few times) that a professional football team should not attempt “double-reverse trickery” when their previous two plays were failures.

Go Oakland!

]]> http://myboyfriendlikesfootball.wordpress.com/2008/09/14/the-ohio-state-stinkfest/feed/ 0 katiegzz http://myboyfriendlikesfootball.wordpress.com/2008/09/08/a-narrow-escape/ http://myboyfriendlikesfootball.wordpress.com/2008/09/08/a-narrow-escape/#comments Mon, 08 Sep 2008 14:16:26 +0000 katiegzz http://myboyfriendlikesfootball.wordpress.com/?p=10 ]]> Football Season officially started on Thursday.  I didn’t watch any of it.

Then the first NFL Sunday of the season rolled around (the first of 16, I’m told.)  Cincinnati’s Bengal stripes were referred to as prison stripes.  Some kind of human-sized digital androids represented football plays of the past.

Then I got a call from an old friend who simply HAD to see me that Sunday morning.  So I still haven’t actually viewed any live plays by any team.

This first Monday, however, of the official professional season, I will be fully entrenched in football fervor.  I’m wearing black right now as I type, not because I’m in mourning, but because this evening I will be one of many Oakland Raiders supporters screaming “Kill! Kill! Kill!” over the Denver Broncos.

Unlike my experience at my brother’s Air Force Academy football game, however, where NO ALCOHOL WAS SERVED, tonight there will be flasks stuffed in socks and cold fizzy beverages purchased.  Although tomorrow morning at work (I assume) will be decidedly unproductive and coupled with a pounding headache and passing waves of nausea, I know that tonight will be worth it.

Here we go Oakland, here we go.

Not too long ago, I remarked out loud to a coworker that I could never be with a man who didn’t enjoy watching sports on television. I explained that, in the comfort of my family home, the sounds of baseball commentators, basketball floors, and large men’s faces plowed into a football field were like the “shushing” sounds a fetus hears in utero before it fully develops its auricular sensibilities. The sounds of sports on TV were the background noise of my childhood. To me, despite all the feminist fervor that the only daughter of a 3-child family must muster, I knew I would have to find a man that enjoyed watching sports, because that, to me, was (gasp!) masculine.

When I made this statement to my coworker, I didn’t know A. I wouldn’t meet him for a few months after this. But when I took the leap to define masculinity (in my own small, personal terms) as someone who likes watching athletic championships while sitting on a reclining throne of cushioned comfort, my coworker had only one response to my admittedly basic list of “must-haves” in a life partner:

“Wow,” he said. “You’re a catch.”

Catch that I am, I do have other requirements for the men in my life. Caring, funny, charming, adorable, kind, loving, generous…the usual drill. But always, and this has never varied–unlike my on/off fascination with men of the interchangeably tall, tattooed, bespectacled, or nicotine-addicted varieties–I knew he would be the type to sit down in the living room and watch sports on TV.

Despite this consistent knowledge on this specific characteristic of anyone I could see myself in a relationship with, I’ve never really had the opportunity to see my supposition play out in a full season of athletic splendor.

This football season marks my first with A. I’ve been granted the gift of a boyfriend who meets my “masculine standards,” and as such has dedicated every Sunday and Monday Night of the next few months to watch large men run fast and slam their chests against each other while chasing a pigskin-bound “golden snitch” for lack of a better metaphor. Now, confronted with the fulfillment of my stereotypical designation of what-makes-a-man, I’m faced with a larger issue: the physical presence of the time-sucking entity that is the National Football League.

Wanting your male significant other to like football is like wanting your female significant other to love baking chocolate cakes. It’s nice, because, in my experience, most men enjoy being brought food by women. Maybe it reminds them of their cake-baking mother. In the same way, it’s nice when your boyfriend reinforces the cultural stereotypes that you’ve grown up with, that are familiar, that are comforting. But what if your wife/girlfriend starts baking cakes every day, three meals a day? Nothing but chocolate cake. And even if you leave the house, you know that when you return you will still smell that sticky-sweet frosting she stirs with such vigorous energy throughout the day.

It’s all well and good to feel safe in the repetition of stereotypes–until reality sets in. And when reality sets in, a decision has to be made. Either accept the chocolate cake (because that’s what you asked for, after all) and make it your own, or denounce it all together. With cake and with football, it’s all or nothing.

NFL season officially starts on Thursday.

I’m in.