Trigger To the Good Ole Days/What a Football Player Would Do, and What a Soccer Player Would Do Differently

It's a typical Friday afternoon in Tallahassee Florida. I'm a freshman in college at FSU, riding in the back seat of a taxi on my way to buy my first new laptop. Feelings of anxiousness are filling my gut as I'm about to make one of the biggest investments of my young life.
 Suddenly while on the way to nearest Tech-store, we drive by the local High School where I notice a peculiar scene that grabs my attention. It's the schools football field, and right there in plain sight are two teams, one in red jerseys and the other in black, just about ready to take the field for the first kickoff. The stands are filled with people, the cheerleaders are running around like excited little kids with pom-poms, and the marching band, which was not very organized, is blaring out fight music in almost unbearable unison. Almost instantly my feeling of anxiety disintegrates into nostalgia. I longed to be out there on that field with my brothers in arms (or pads).
Although I am but 1 year removed from experiencing this myself, the overwhelming desire to re-live the glory of High School football became an obsession. I stared at this scene as the cab drove by it, and turned my head to keep it in sight until it was gone. Although out of my view, the image, still burned into my head, morphed into an image of me, in my maroon jersey and over-sized pads taking the field with my teammates. I began to remember the pre-game rituals. How as a team, we'd stand in rows of four and hold each others hands as we walked down the field together towards the away team, who as they warmed up, looked at us in confusion, probably wondering why we were on their designated side of the field during stretches. This was just an intimidation/taunting factor to get inside the other teams head, however to us it was tradition. We'd then stretch, pump each other up in a chaotic cluster of screaming and cursing, and then take the field and do what we came to do. Play football. 

I grew up in a very diverse, liberal setting in central New Jersey so even when there was a strong sports culture, I was still able to be friends with athletes of all different kinds of sports. I don't know this for a fact, but I just assume that in places like middle America or in the deep south, athletes of the same sport stick together and seem to stay away from athletes of different sports, like the stereo-type of football players hating soccer and lacrosse players. But anyways my point is this, since some of my best friends were both football and soccer players, me being a football player, I am able to associate how athletes from each of these sports would go about making everyday life decisions, simply based upon the culture of their sport. For example, a football player would obviously prefer madden over a soccer players fifa. But that's too obvious. Lets get into some more dynamic life decisions and try to break down why each athlete would pick what.
1. What kind of car should I buy? This one is simple. Clearly the football player, being way cooler, tougher, bigger, and more stylish then a soccer player would have to go with a Camaro. The Camaro defines a football player, American muscle! This car has horsepower, speed, descent size, and strength. The soccer player on the other hand would probably go with the Prius. Nothing against them for this great choice. I mean someone has to care for the enviroment (HA!). But just like the soccer player, the Prius is small, eco-friendly, and would be utterly destroyed in the most miniscule of collisions.
2. What should I eat for dinner? Football players aren't necessarily the "weight-watching" types. For us, we prefer heavy protein meals filled with calories and flavors in order to help re-build muscle after a brutal practice. Something like a steak smothered in A1 BBQ sauce, topped off with sauted onions, and complimented by roasted potatoes and gravy on the side. Soccer players need to watch their figure, for any fluctuation in weight can severly alter their stamina, and therefore their game as a whole. For them, a nice fat plate of tofu with some soy sauce (not too much soy sauce, too much sodium), and maybe on a good day a fresh salad. Finish it all off with a nice refreshing glass of wheat grass and you have yourself a scrumptious meal made for futbol gods.
3. What movie should I see in theaters, 300, or The Devil Wears Prada? To be completely honest, football is just the ultimate team sport. When your on the field, every mans job must be done correctly as a unit in order to make sure the team thrives to victory. This is why 300 is the perfect movie for the football machine. It represents teamwork and total toughness as a unit. If one Spartan warrior gives up his position, it could mean annihilation for the entire army, and in this case the team. Soccer players on the other hand would watch The Devil Wears Prada just for the simple fact that they love Meryl Streep.
4. What kind of drink should I order at the bar? When thinking about this question one must take into account the toughness of a football player, and the finess of a soccer player. We battle it out on the gridiron through long fits of pain and anguish, while soccer players prance around kicking a ball. For this reason us football players would either order a nice cold lager, or a whiskey straight. The lager, being the thickest of the beer family, represents the strength of a football players competitive edge. The whiskey straight compares to our hardness in will and perseverance in times when things get tough, yet we stick it through to the end and swallow the pain (no pun intended). Soccer players would most likely order a cosmopolitan, for its sweeter and gentler going down just as soccer players play with a more gentle approach, avoiding pain at all costs. The sherley temple could be another option for the soccer player. Devoid of any alcohol all-together, it represents the soccer player for pain, toughness, and hard will are simply just not characteristics of either.
5. Marines or coast guard?.....Do I really need to explain this one?

We Live, Breath, and Eat Sports!

"Sports is human life in microcosm". -Howard Cosell

For some people, watching sports is a miniscule task when compared to the bigger picture of their lives. To them, the winner of the superbowl isn't necessarily important, for they even picked which team to root for just by deciding which teams jersey colors they preferred. To others, watching olympic sports is more about the social aspect of worldy cultures, and not about the culture of the sports they're actually watching. And then there's those who criticize sports like football or hockey, calling them "barbaric" sports with no benefits to society, and ignoring the most vital parts of these sports to which they naievly condemn, the culture behind, as well as within the game itself. While I have nothing against these people, they didn't choose to be oblivious to how awesome sports are, I pitty them. For sports not only define a culture of a chosen few who volunteer their hearts and souls to these games, but they define entire countries, as well as politics, and even war. The love of sports runs so deep within our culture as humans as a whole, that even if one denied liking sports, they could never escape the affects they had, and still have, on the culture around them. We see this in the case of the football players in Rodney Jone's poem battling physical and mental anguish within themselves on the field just to feel some sort of self acceptance. All they cared about was proving to themselves and to their teamates that they weren't weak and that even after a long and brutal practice, they were going to battle it out during sprints in an attempt to further build that competitive edge it takes to succeed on the football field. This was their culture and their livelyhood, everything that defined them as men. To fail was to die. Similarly in Chuck Klosterman's essay "33" in his book, Sex Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs, we feel the same type of dedication to the culture of basketball simply by the context to which he describes his love of the Celtics. He even goes so far as to creating a system to which one can make any life decision simply by associating one's self with either the LA Lakers, or the Boston Celtics, as well as comparing each of these teams to political parties. The Lakers to the liberal democrats, and the Celtics to the conservative republicans.

These two examples reinforce the point that sports are much more than games, but lifestyles. "This is why men need to be obsessed with things: It's an extroverted way to pursue solipsism (Klosterman pg. 102)." Even Klosterman goes so far as to saying that men NEED, not want, but NEED to be obsessed with things, in this context particularly sports. It helps us define who we are not to the outside world, but to ourselves. The way Klosterman embodies the relationship between the Lakers and the Celtics, is that he uses them as a legitimate reasoning tool behind any question, the same way we reason with issues amongst ourselves when dealing with teams we love. For instance, I love the Jets. More often than not, they play terrible. However on those rare occasions when they play well and win, I genuinely feel like a winner. They've taught me to never take anything for granted, and therefore I consider myself a better person. This is the kind of culture i've adapted to in the sports world. Take a minute to analyze yourself, and try to see which events in your life might have been influenced by the cultures around you. Once you've done this, take another minute to determine if this culture may have been affected or not by sports. Whether it was in high school on a friday night, going out with your friends and the whole town to watch the local high school football team. Or even at pep ralleys, when everyone cheered for the schools individual teams in school spirit. These small examples are but a fraction of the cultural affects sports holds on us all in America, as well as the world.

To My Beloved Gang Green

Dear New York football Jets, I am writing this letter as a testament to my love for you as an organization that has provided me with something to root for, as well as hope for, for the last 8 years of my life. When I say "hope", I mean it in a way which speculates my true feelings, which are that I stay a fan because I NEED to see you win a Superbowl just once before I die! Maybe the fact that this task seems far from reality is the reason I am in fact still alive, waiting, and waiting for that magical day you decide to finally play up to your potential (wait, what potential). So in a sense, I guess I owe you a special thanks for that. Thanks for providing me with perpetual, yet false hope every season. It truly gives me something to live for. Just hoping that any given year could finally be our year gives me the motivation to keep going on with the meaningless life you have coincidentally caused me to live. But still, thanks again. For without you how else would I learn to never take a win for granted? Those patriots fans don't know what they're missing. Always winning and never appreciating it. No wonder they're the most hated team in the league. But not you Jets. No, you know how to make a fan truly miserable, and then right before we contemplate jumping off the George Washington Bridge in an attempt to alleviate the misery of a sub-par season (every year), you suddenly pull out a 38-3 victory over the ever so cunning Cleveland Browns. If it weren't for these occasional, and amazing victories, I don't know how I'd go on watching you week after week, mysteriously still expecting something relevant to happen. Like remember that time you guys scored 1, yes 1, touchdown in an entire 4 weeks of preseason. THAT WAS AWESOME! Especially since our 3rd string quarterback was the one who tossed it in to a no-name running back who was cut the following day. But its alright Sanchez, you'll get it eventually.....I hope.

But seriously, let me please give you guys some humble advice. I feel as though it is my duty to share with you as an organization what I feel is, well, lacking, for if I withheld this information, I wouldn't even be as good as a Dolphins fan. First off, offensive coordinator, whoever you are this particular year, please understand that you in fact have Mark Sanchez as a starter, and not Joe Montana. Yea, that means stop expecting amazing 60 yd. touchdown passes to a receiving core filled with players who wouldn't even be considered an elite college unit. Yea its called "high percentage passes". That means short passes which in fact open up the running lanes you so desperately attempt to own, however in fact relinquish to my pop-warner teams defense. Listen, i'm not saying I could personally run your offense successfully, but in fact I am. And can I just say this?...TIM TEBOW??? What!?!?!?! What was the point of that? Seriously, after giving Mark a contract extension Wes Welker deserved more (yea, and I hate the Patriots), you then go ahead and pick up baby Jesus? Just when I thought I couldn't lose anymore hope in you guys, you go ahead and pull a stunt like this. Hey, maybe next time the most media-friendly player you decide to pick up will have a relevant and beneficial affect on the TEAM.    Until then, I'm going to be hibernating where no one can find me, or where I can't see you play, for it will simply break my green little heart.

With much love, Gavi Reichman

Culture of the Game

For anyone who has ever played a sport and really loved it for everything it offered, its culture, its glory, its heart-break, would know that personal accomplishments, although sometimes not remembered or even acknowledged by anyone, stay firm in our own memories as being some of the most important nostalgic flashbacks in our lives. This is the case when relating to Chuck Klosterman's article referring to a 1980s Juco basketball tournament in North Dakota between two schools most people in America have and never will hear of. The highlight of the story details an all-Native American team who were severely outmatched in not only size, but athleticism, and not to mention physical and literal numbers. Towards the end of the game, they were forced to finish with 3, thats right, 3 players against 5. Astonishingly they came out with a 3-point victory over their competitors who ironically associate the loss with not knowing how to defend 3 players. One would assume a 2-man advantage would be all you need to facilitate and easy win, however this was clearly not the case. In interviews with players from the winning team over 2 decades later, many of them still relish in the glory of that miraculous win and even throw in a few arbitrary facts about their personal stats from that game or season, just to re-live the good ole days.

Even in two different sports, the same philosophies exist in terms of nostalgic glory when looking back at athletic accomplishments. In James Wright's poem, Autumn Begins in Martins Ferry, Ohio, he outlines the very real historical culture related to high school football in america, and specifically in Ohio. He speaks of the fathers gloating over their sons play on the field, making them into figurative sporting heroes, the spectators 'nursing' beers in the crowd, and the boys 'galloping terribly against each others bodies'.

These two very different stories, one describing a 3-man team of natives beating an opponent expected to rout them, and a poem, glorifying the start of high school football season have one thing in common. One must observe the aspect of the culture and nostalgia involved in not just these two sports, but in all sports as a whole. No matter how big or small the accomplishment, when playing a sport you truly love, even the smallest of achievements are forever embedded in our memories. In both these stories examples of nostalgia exist when looking at the memories the native players have of their game in the 1980s which will never be remembered by anyone except those who played in the game, or the glory on the gridiron in which these fathers of high school stars will forever gloat on behalf of the accomplishments they experienced vicariously through their offspring. Even for myself, an ideal fool for the game of football who in my own days of playing in high school never had any note-worthy accomplishments to be remembered by history. However to me, my lonely single career varsity interception, or my one blocked kick that game against Shore Regional, or that time I scored my first touchdown in the back corner of the end zone on a flag route, and then of course my favorite nostalgic memory of all during my last ever high school football game, scoring two of my final three career touchdowns, one on a pass and the other on a reverse hand-off will stand as the accomplishments I had on the football field. However small in comparison, they define everything I personally achieved playing the game I loved, and will be forever engraved in my memory. Just like the natives who to themselves, accomplished something iconic, but to everyone else a unknown fact, and to the fathers of those boys on the football field.

When writing an essay of my own relating to nostalgia and sports, the one thing I can truly take away from James Wright's vision of the start of high school football season, is the vivid details of change when the season comes around and about how almost everyone drops what they're doing to be apart of the culture. To me these memories are not so distant, for as I write this now I am but a year removed from these feelings. However when reading this poem I am instantly taken back to the beginning of September and the crisp fall nights in New Jersey when taking the field to face our opponents. This type of writing that can generate so much nostalgia, especially for sports, is the kind I would use when writing about the love and culture of a game.