It’s the Sport of Kings, Better than Diamond Rings

Football.

There is something magical about football. A few weeks ago, I was visiting the AFM office to pick up a few copies of the September issue with Ricky Williams on the cover. I began talking to Alex Earle and Leah Nyfeler about why I admired Ricky. I soon confessed that I am a bit of a junkie when it comes to football, so when I was asked to write about my passion, I jumped at the chance.

This blog is named after the closing song in the movie Wildcats, starring Goldie Hawn. Allow me to explain why.

When I was a kid, our family had one TV. It was a 13-inch black and white number that sat on a rolling cart so we could wheel it from my parents’ room into the kitchen. Every cartoon, Disney movie, and, yes—football game—was watched on this tiny little colorless screen. At least until my Dad graduated college in 1986 when I was 9 years old. My grandparents bought our family our first color TV!  From that moment on, I knew education was really important. One of the first movies we watched on that huge 20-plus inch colorful monster was the movie Wildcats. Goldie Hawn played the role of the woman coach at Prescott College, and the star player was their quarterback Levander “Bird” Williams. Imagine Vince Young in a football movie, and that was Levander Williams—smooth like smoke through a key hole running out of the pocket! He was just flat out cool.  He even wore his uniform better than the other players.

Football.

It has the ability to bring over 100,000 people to one place at the same time to watch people play the sport. Try getting ten of your friends together at the same place and time, and you quickly find out that it’s not super easy. But for football, people will travel the globe to witness a game live. It’s pure magic.

It was one of the reasons why I moved from the Pacific Northwest to Austin. I remember the first time I watched Ricky Williams play. It was a night game in Austin, and Ricky was a freshman. The announcers kept alluding to this young phenom from San Diego with the dreads that played professional baseball for the Phillies. Then, Ricky got in the game and he was awesome—fast, quick and powerful. The announcers also kept talking about the city of Austin and how great it was. Now, it’s normal for them to mention something about the city like, “We’re here in Pullman, Washington folks. Aww…the rolling hills of the Palouse.  It’s really cold.”  But on this particular night, they kept going on and on about what a great city Austin was.  The music!  The food!  The weather! The people!  Best city they’ve ever been to.  All the tradition and pageantry of football in the SOUTH. A few years later, I packed a U-haul and moved across the country to chase some of that southern magic for myself.

“It’s the sport of kings” will be a blog about football and life and how the two intersect constantly. From the Longhorns, to the college football landscape, to a little NFL/Fantasy football—let’s ride!