Times are a changin. No matter who you are or where you’re from, there is an awakening occurring in this country and beyond. I’ve been thinking a lot, much like many of you I’m sure, but one thing that continues to come to my personal mind is the personal journey I had with the game of football.
It’s a long story, and we will absolutely hear more of it here on the blog, but I wanted to focus today on why we need football right now, and competitive sports fall in line with the same points. Personally football to me is the best sport for my argument, but you can insert your personal sport and probably feel very similarly.
Here’s a few good reasons why we love and need football right now.
A place to fight.
No matter who you are or where you’re from. Football gives you a place to take out all of your frustration in a controlled atmosphere. Football truly is a war game between two opposing philosophies, winning and losing. You practice every day to defeat your enemy. You hit your brothers, and your brothers hit you. You get up. You help them up. You spend 2 hours battling together everyday to overcome whatever, or whoever you need. That energy on game day is then transferred to competitive opposition. Fans, cheerleaders, strangers fight with you, and against you.
Winning and losing depend on how hard you fight, and how much respect you walk away with is sometimes the true score.
A place to cry.
We all go through things. We are all human. We all have angst. We all have struggle. We all have different perspectives but our likeness lies in the way we react to adversity. I have seen some of the most incredible and pathetic examples of fortitude and integrity on the football field. It does not matter what color you are, you battle. You fight. You cry. Sometimes you cry because you think you can’t. There is a brother (or sister in sport) who holds you up. If you cry for the wrong reason, your teammate will out you (if he or she is a good one). Fans, cheerleaders, strangers cry with you when you’re down, and when you win.
Winning and losing depend on how hard you fight, and how much respect you walk away with is sometimes the true score.
A place to scream.
When the whistle blows, its fucking on. Everything inside of you has now reached the point of adrenaline. Even thinking about game day still gets my soul wet inside. The fans, the belief, the fear, the fortitude. The rally cries, the chants, the hate from opposing fans trying to effect you mentally. Nothing builds hate when you have a place to healthily excrete your passion into something with your brothers. Fans, cheerleaders, strangers scream with you, and at you, but you are together with your men. (or women)
Winning and losing depend on how hard you fight, and how much respect you walk away with is sometimes the true score.
A place to call home.
No program is the same. No team is the same. No person is the same. No matter who you are, when you put on the fucking colors, (team colors), you are now someone. You are a part of something. You are fighting for something. Someone might be escaping an overbearing, abusive household in the suburbs, some might not even have a household to call home. When you put on the fucking colors, you become someone you’ve never been, you have a home for the amount of time you wear those colors. You are home.
Winning and losing depend on how hard you fight, and how much respect you walk away with is sometimes the true score.
A place where skin tone doesn’t matter, warrior spirit sees no color.
When the shit hits the fan, race does not matter. When you play alongside someone who isn’t the same color as you, you wear the same colors as them. When you walk into the huddle, you are part of a brotherhood. (my huddle anyway) It doesn’t matter where you’re from, or who you are, the game of football brings people together on the field, and off of it. It rises us to a level of higher spirit and love and oneness that nothing else can.
Winning and losing depend on how hard you fight, and how much respect you walk away with is sometimes the true score.
I could go on. This is my way of trying to show anyone who will listen that we can live as one. I know this. I have done it. I’ve done it on the field of play, and off it my entire life. The field where I learned what being a human meant. That’s where I learned that the eyes tell the story, not the skin. That’s where I learned that people are not from the same place. That’s where I learned that people have breaking points, no matter what color they are.
I just want everyone else to see it the way a football player sees it.
Winning and losing depend on how hard you fight, and how much respect you walk away with is sometimes the true score.
