My New Love

It all started in high school.

I was pretty much a girly-girl growing up. I didn't really climb a tree until I was 13. I didn't make mudpies. Then, my sophomore year of high school, I had Coach Alberta for PE. Mr. Alberta was one of our football coaches, and he decided that we would do football in our PE class. I will love him forever for that! He split us up into regular teams for our "season" and for some reason favored the team I was on. He taught us illegal plays and made sure all the girls got the chance to be quarterback.

Because of dear Coach Alberta, I came to love football.

I had always liked going to football games. My older sister was a band geek, and I loved going to the high school games with her as she played in the marching band. But the Friday night football games were just a social situation. I went to see my friends, flirt with the boys, etc. But once I had some understanding of the game, I would sit and acually watch. In college, I never missed a home game. Superbowl Sunday is practically a national holiday!

After college, I decided that I needed to have an NFL team to regularly follow. (My dear, sweet college team who shall remain nameless will probably forever have a fairly pathetic team, so I needed to have SOME chance to root for a team doing well!) But how do you decide? I respected the Green Bay Packers and the Pittsburgh Steelers, but didn't feel much loyalty to either of them. I hated the Denver Broncos, Dallas Cowboys and San Francisco 49ers for reasons I won't get into here. Then, I got married. My (now ex-)husband's team was the Kansas City Chiefs. Not a team known for being big contenders for the Superbowl, but if I chose them, that would eliminate any family competition. I took a couple years to decide. Thanks to Coach Dick Vermeil, Priest Holmes, Dante Hall and Tony Gonzalez, the team was doing very well. My decision was made. I was a loyal Chiefs fan.

Then Coach Vermeil retired.

And then Priest Holmes got hurt.

And then Dante Hall got traded to the Rams.

And then I got a divorce.

And this past year, Tony Gonzalez went to the Falcons.

Did I really want to keep Kansas City as my team? But again, I found myself in the position of how do I pick a new team?

The first key was Tony Gonzalez. How can you not love a football player who spikes the ball over the goalpost when he makes a touchdown?? Plus, he's just a great player. And, to top it off, he and I were born on the exact same day - not just sharing a birthday, but born on the same day in the same year! Somewhere, it was also sitting in the back of my head that my sister's team had been the Falcons, but I couldn't remember for sure. And then I remembered the whole Michael Vick dog fighting fiasco. I remembered my sister saying how embarassed she was that he had played for her team. A quick internet search later, sure enough, Michael Vick was playing for the Falcons at the time. And not only that, but when he got out of jail, he tried to go back to the Falcons. They would not let him play!! SOLD!! The Atlanta Falcons are officially my new NFL team.

Was that a long enough description for you? I rarely do things the easy way. :)