Dec. 30, 2006
COMMENTARY: ‘Tis the Season for Men on the Couch
By Steve Brewer
Scripps Howard News Service
During this season of giving and reflection and renewal, a man's
thoughts
naturally turn to football.
'Tis the season for men wearing plastic reindeer antlers and a fine
dusting
of Doritos crumbs to sprawl on sofas, basking in the TV glow while our
plucky families celebrate all around us.
It's a season of hope and joy, anticipation and disappointment, the
thrill
of victory and the agony of sweat-sock feet. It's the time of year when
grown men ask Santa to please, please grant one wish _ a first-and-goal
on
the two with a minute to go.
While others sing carols and make resolutions and gobble leftovers, we
men
display as much holiday energy as your average potted poinsettia. Lumps
of
coal we are, as we watch round-the-clock games, sometimes two or three
at
once, moving nothing but our eyes and our overdeveloped remote control
thumbs.
It's not that we're lazy. We're pouring all our available resources
into
rooting for our favorite teams, occasionally even jumping up from the
La-Z-Boy to shout, "Yes!" and grab another eggnog. Our teams can't do
it
without us. We're the Twelfth Man, pouring spiritual energy into the TV
sets
of America.
Our families, on the other hand, seem able to soldier on with the
decorating
and the turkey-basting and the party-throwing without us. Or, with the
limited participation that we can offer during halftimes.
The football leagues and the TV networks pander to sports junkies by
televising the important games during the holiday season, when the
biggest
audience is likely to be off work and lying in front of a big-screen
TV,
naked except for boxers decorated with candy canes and evergreens,
eating
day-old guacamole directly off its fingers.
This year, men will be distracted from their loved ones by an estimated
137
college bowl games. Plus the NFL playoffs, which take us well into the
new
year, finally culminating in the Super Bowl, which I believe is
sometime in
July.
While the rest of the world makes merry and bright, we football fans
relish
tackles and sacks and crack-back blocks. We wallow in violence and
spirited
competition and the mud and the blood and the beer. Nothing says "Happy
Holidays" like a crushing blindside tackle in the secondary.
Our preoccupation with football is partly a coping mechanism, a way to
deal
with the bustle and glow of the holiday season. All that danged joy.
Brrr.
It's also a primitive urge. It's winter, so we eat lots of big meals
and
hibernate in our dark dens, waking only when the crowd noise alerts us
to a
big play, just in time to watch the slow-motion replay.
We know our football fixation sometimes stresses our spouses, who are
forced
to use food aromas and actual beer to lure us off the couch long enough
to,
say, open our Christmas gifts. Our lethargy sets a bad example for our
children. Our children. You remember the children. The ones who run
screaming in front of the TV screen once in a while? Them.
Our families should not despair. Eventually, the football season will
end.
Spring will arrive, and we men will rise up from our sofas and shake
the
crumbs from our pelts and emerge from our caves. We'll stop obsessing
on
point-spreads and statistics and fantasy leagues and bad calls and
boneheaded coaching. We'll once again gather our families in the warm
embrace of our full attention.
Until March Madness.
Redding, Calif., author Steve Brewer's latest book is called "Bank
Job."
Contact him at ABQBrewer@aol.com.