Can women like football without being unladylike?
I popped the popcorn, my
roommate poured the diet pop
and off we ran like a couple of
two-year-olds to the living room
to stare contentedly into the
television screen for the next
two and a half hours.
But it wasn’t Dallas or Dynas
ty, or even the likes of Simon &
Simon that we’d waited all
week in great anticipation to
see. Those shows were, of
course, still high on our list of
priority viewing, but they lack
ed the literal punch of our
seasonal favorite — ABC Mon
day Night Football.
Despite the long-held opinion
that most “ladies” are oblivious
to sports-mania, the pair of us
had been at this weekly NFL
nighttime craze for months, and
by the end of last season
nothing — not even a solid
week of finals ahead — was go
ing to keep us from getting our
junkie-like fix of pigskin
pitching.
In past years, however, my
enthusiasm for the sport had not
been so great. For the most part,
in fact, 1 hated football and
thought it was totally boring. I
see now that this ho-hum at
titude was due to my absolute
ignorance of football.
It wasn’t that there weren’t
eager fans around me willing to
let me sit in on a game with
them or even buy me a ticket to
a real-live one at Autzen. It was
just that my family was too busy
watching to explain the play
by-play action and my friends
were usually plastered from too
much parking-lot socializing to
help.
Not even my years of high
school cheerleading helped
either. I always chose sidelines
gossip over trying to learn what
it was that the guys were doing
out there on the field and relied
instead on the home-crowd’s
reaction for clues. If they clap
ped, I jumped — nothing to it.
It wasn’t until I unknowingly
moved in with the private
game-plan consultant to Bill
Walsh that I was forced to learn
the game. As a seasoned arm
chair quarterback, my room
mate (who shall remain
nameless or I will become
homeless) was not about to
switch the channel, thank you.
So my options on Monday
nights were either to clean the
toilet or read my anthropology
Commentary
book ,.. or watch football.
To make a long story short, I
soon learned the referee’s
penalty signals, a scant amount
about game plans, and could
recite most of the NFL’s divi
sions and conferences without
coaching. She also explained
that the guy with the ball isn’t
meaning to run into the pile of
linebackers on purpose and that
he can’t just run up the side and
make a touchdown as easy as I
thought he could.
In addition, what I thought
was just a bunch of idiotic bone
crunching was really a series of
carefully thought-out
maneuvers. And the three
numbers the quarterback yelled
out at the beginning of each
play were not the measurements
of his girlfriend, or his safe
combination, they were in fact
play calls, of which the men
had memorized hundreds,
possibly thousand of times dur
ing their careers.
Finally, I came to believe that
those big blobs of color with
numbers were actually human
beings, and intelligent ones at
that — at least a good percent of
them. Many of the professional
football players were also pro
fessionals outside the stadium
as doctors, accountants, stock
brokers, etc., she informed me.
I look back now and marvel at
' her patience. Over and over we
rehearsed the official rules, ,
regulations, pass formations,
and so on until finally I could
slap my leg and swear without
having to turn and ask her if
what happened was “good” or
“bad.”
What I enjoyed most about
this newfound knowledge was
being able to understand what
the huddles of guys at parties
were talking about. Sometimes I
even added my own comment
to the conversation, but doing
so drew more blank and
astonished looks than phone
calls for dates the next week, so
I shut up.
My mentor, however, wasn't
afraid to ruffle the feathers of
the jock-minded set, and there
were a couple of times where
she unmeaningly put them in
their place with her remarkable
insight of the game.
For the most part, I found,
men just couldn’t handle the
fact that a woman might know
anything about this manly
sport. Many were quite
chauvanistic, and one even ad
mitted he couldn’t visualize the
two of us watching football and
really enjoying it. We were real
ly watching it just for the tight
fitting pants, he said.
Much to her dismay, some of
these macho characters labeled
her a “freak,” "fanatic” or
“know-it-all,” and only the best
of male friends had the grace —
as well as brainpower — to talk
football with her.
No matter — my favorite
coach and I will soon be back in
front of the big-screen cheering
on our favorite team. And the
door will be open for any fellas
out there — Raiders fans ex
cluded — who are big enough to
admit to a little ingorance and
don’t mind watching a great
game in the presence of a cou
ple of unladylike fans.
By Julie Shippen
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IVetrnw Back U ot 0 Students
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