When Super Bowl Sunday rolled around a little less than two weeks ago, I did what many of you probably did - I went to a Super Bowl party. The party was at the house of my friend, Fed. Fed is an extraordinarily nice person, almost to the point where it's started to become a problem. He just has too many friends. By the time I arrived at the party fashionably late (a Cavalier Daily columnist is never on time), I was relegated to sitting in a desk chair essentially in another room of the party, far away from the TV.
As someone who actually enjoys listening to commentators and doesn't make fun of them all the time, I found my unfortunate seating arrangement rather distressing. Toss in some annoying girls talking loudly right in front of the TV, and my level of annoyance began its steady rise.
But when some of Fed's friends - who would consider themselves "cultured" - starting making some "funny" comments, I really started to get pissed off.
"Wait, have there been any red cards yet?" a nattily-dressed individual - I'm talking skinny jeans here - asked me.
I turned and glared at him, fighting back the urge to blow up. But before I could answer, yet another sharply-dressed individual piped in.
"Nah, dude, those come after the penalty kicks."
Wait, what?
Generally, I try not to let ignorant sports "fans" bother me. I've met and can interact happily with people who don't like sports at all. My girlfriend of four miserably-long years hates sports, and we get along just fine.
But this incident bothered me. And it just wouldn't stop. This intentional ignorance, this deliberate mocking of football continued throughout the evening.
It got so bad that I even considered walking out despite having ordered and paid for Buffalo Wild Wings, one of my true loves.
I wasn't going to let these idiots ruin the most American holiday apart from Thanksgiving. I eventually moved to sit somewhere else, sparing both my hand, their faces and my police record from further damage.
Yet even after the game, my anger didn't fade. These people were trying to be funny by mocking football. But worst of all, they were actually making others laugh.
Football is an outstanding game. It is, as the NFL's senior spokesperson Greg Aiello always likes to say, "the ultimate reality show." Each fall brings human drama played out on fields in towns everywhere from Maine to Hawaii. There, perhaps, is no sport more quintessentially and completely American than football.
I understand that it's not soccer. Apparently, that's what all the cool people like these days. I'm not entirely sure why people would like a sport that even the French are good at, but that's fine. I must have missed the memo that declared soccer the best competitive sport out there.
For me, you just can't get any better than football. I'll watch it whenever it's on, no matter what teams are playing. Hell, I'll even watch Team USA vs. the World in a matchup featuring the globe's best high school football players, like I did last weekend. And by "the World," USA Football just means the best from Canada and Samoa, but that's all right.
And no, there were no penalty kicks in that one either.
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