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Two weeks ago I traveled up to the Bay Area to spend my mom's birthday weekend with her. She had managed to get 4 tickets to the Cal Berkley vs. Stanford football game and was taking me and my two brothers to see it. I'm not a big football fan (in fact, the most I know about football is that the season takes place sometime in the fall, and not to go grocery shopping on Superbowl weekend), but I am a big fan of spending time with my mom and brothers, so off I went with a song in my heart (and a flask in my pocket.)Well, my football fan friends (all two of them) will be happy to know that not only did I enjoy the time with my family; I also enjoyed the game... A lot! I was surprised at how quickly I was drawn into the action. I found myself yelling, cheering, booing, swearing--even standing up and clapping when my (randomly chosen) team got a touchdown. It made me think about how sports hold a unique place in our culture... The teams and players are our modern day Greek heroes; those larger-than-life gladiators who make us feel as if each game is an open door of possibility; where the unexpected is anticipated and our own small acts of faith can help turn the tide from certain defeat to glorious victory.
It's heady stuff.
And the football love didn't end there. My mom wanted to see the new Sandra Bullock movie The Blind Side, which is about a poor black kid from the wrong side of the tracks called "Big Mike". Big Mike is placed by fate in a rich Christian school, then taken in by a wealthy white family, and eventually becomes Michael Oher, the greatest left tackle in the history of football... or something like that. I have to admit that I was skeptical at first. A football movie? And one about a poor black kid taken in by rich white folks? Isn't that kind of cliché? But it wasn't, not at all. It was humorous and moving. I was utterly captivated from beginning to end. In fact, I was so captivated that I bought the book on which the movie is based and started reading it that very evening. And here is where the real fun begins.
The book upon which the movie is based is The Blind Side: Evolution of a Game by Michael Lewis, and where the movie focuses on the storyline of Michael Oher, the book actually tells you two stories: the story of the strange and sometimes perfectly normal ideas and events that have played a part in the evolution of football in recent years; and the story of one abandoned and neglected boy who--due to a strange combination of luck, love, and exploitation--goes on to become one of the most sought after football players of the modern era.
If you don't already know about Michael Lewis, he is the man who also authored Moneyball, a book that changed the way people look at how baseball is played. Now let me tell you something about Mr. Lewis: the man can write sports. He could sell sprinting to a paraplegic. I didn't know anything about football and really didn't care, but I could not put this book down. What makes Lewis' book so interesting is the way he weaves a human interest story about this one kid into the greater history of football. But it's not just that. His history is inclusive and full of unexpected connections. Lewis writes sports the way Stephen King writes characters; which is to say that upon first reading he seems to include unnecessary descriptions of things (characters in King's case, events in Lewis'), but the deeper you get into the story the more you begin to see connection after connection, until pretty soon it's obvious that each of these irrelevant details was in fact necessary to lead you to the story's inevitable conclusion. Reading Lewis' book was like reading through Greek mythology, where Zeus' first sight of Leda leads windingly but inexorably to the death of Cassandra in Mycenae.
A few years ago when I read Watching Baseball Smarter by Zach Hample and became a rabid baseball fan, my friends made fun of me for my sudden and out of character interest in sports; but I always knew it made sense because baseball is a game of grace, subtlety and strategy. More often than not the game is won or lost by skill and intelligence, not muscle. Football, on the other hand, always seemed like a game of grunts, grimaces and brute strength--certainly not something I could ever admire or show an interest in.
Well, apparently the pen really is mightier than the sword--and the deliverer of miracles to boot--because Michael Lewis has shown me the light. I may not be a rabid fan, but I'm starting to understand the nation's fascination with football.
