Pointy Ball - the Game of Action!

You know already that I am a die-hard football fan, and further you know that I use that term - football - in it's most accurate sense. I love the game we call here, in the States, soccer. And heck, I call it soccer too, in casual conversation. Mostly I call it football to make a point or pick a fight. I'm that kind of a jerk, I suppose.

American parochialism is something you come to terms with if you live here - that deep in the bone, vehemently small-minded smug ignorance. It's not just in politics or world affairs or economics or concepts of society, it's really one of our most obvious flaws - or strengths. I suppose you could see it as a strength, somehow. What do I know? Perhaps it's a cultural adaptation for Running the World.

If you're a soccer fan in the US you run into all the time from the people around you who condemn the game as boring. I don't ever really have a response to that statement because, really, that's such an asinine statement that my mind can't find traction. "Well," I sometimes ask, "what sport do you like?"

"Football!" is the inevitable answer if you're dealing with a soccer-bigot. It's always the people who like American Gridiron Football who call out soccer as "boring". One thing usual leads to the other . . .

I give them a hard time. "But I thought you hated football. You said it was boring."

"Naw, I said soccer is boring."

"Oh, I see! That's where you're confused. What you call football is a common mistake. My sport is called football. You'll have to pick a new name. We had that one first because, you see, we actually use the foot."

We discuss history at this point, and the long history of the Real Game of Football but that doesn't ever make an impression. Usually you get some reaction along the lines of We kick the ball too!

Yes, every once in a while. By that logic you might call tennis handball. Or basketball freethrowball.

I call American football by it's common name - football - too, but only in private. In public I call it pointyball or handegg. Or just gridiron.

But the name isn't important - I just like to pick fights. The reality is that American pointyhandeggball is grossly boring. Though it's billed as fast-paced and exciting that's a misconception - the action and excitement come in such discrete and sudden bursts that you might miss it altogether if you lean over to tie your shoe, or answer a text.

Two years ago I was given tickets to a college game played in the Georgia Dome. They were free, the kids had never been to one and so I said, why not? I could care less about the game or the teams involved but it was an interesting exposure to local culture for my children and so I was all for it. Personally, I have no interest in the game or how it's played or its tactics, so i spent my time instead running an experiment to test a long held theory that the game itself is slow as hell . . .

I timed the action in ten minute intervals, using my stopwatch to log the amount of time the ball was actively in play during that time frame. I took ten minute samples through all four quarters and then took my average.

In ten minutes of play the ball was active for an average of 47 seconds. Forty-seven seconds! What a sport for short-attention span sufferers! The rest of the time can be spent getting up and lining up for hotdogs and beer, or peeing out the beer you drank during the last ten minute interval. Go ahead, get up - you won't miss anything: the players will be loitering here or there as they go to the huddle or away from the huddle or there's a timeout or a TV timeout or the refs are consulting.

Football's exciting? Maybe if you were to link all those 47 second intervals together into one continuous time flow. Otherwise you might as well be watching bocce ball . . .