There’s No Crying in … Manhood? (The Post!)

Did you watch the Seattle Seahawks-Green Bay Packers football game the other day? It was one of two semifinal games with the right to go to the Super Bowl. Anyway, did you watch it?

Yes? No? I am not asking because your answer will determine whether you will enjoy this post. This post is almost 2,000 words and perhaps 100 of those say anything about football. No, this post delves much deeper than merely talking about what happened on the field of a football game. The reason I asked you is because my starting point is an emotional post-game interview by Erin Andrews of winning quarterback, Seattle’s Russell Wilson.

Link to the video: (http://www.nfl.com/videos/nfl-playoffs/0ap3000000460303/Wilson-breaks-down-after-emotional-victory)

In the interview, a jubiliant, overwhelmed, extremely grateful Wilson is in tears and, as we sometimes say, “wearing his emotions on his sleeve.” That’s right, folks, a guy who plays a position that we Americans associate with manhood—quarterback of the championship football team—broke down and cried right there on your televisions! The shame of it! How dare he allow his “emotions to get the best of him!” How dare he lose control like that! Where is his sense of pride? Doesn’t he know crying is for women, children and babies? Didn’t he grow out of that?

These are the questions that went through a lot of minds upon seeing this. Just do some digging into “Twitter reaction to Wilson crying” (link) or something along those lines. I think I can safely make a guarantee: those questions will (and did) pop up. So what I want to do is dive into those questions and take a look at the answers we come up with, or even ponder the questions themselves. Then, I’d like to throw the thinking that leads to such questions in the historical trash bag. This trash bag is where we either have or want to put ideas that no longer serve us. Ideas like slavery and racial discrimination, or the subjugation of one gender to another. I’d like to suggest that many of our ideas around what it is to be a man ought also be taken out with the next trash and one of those cherished ideas is this idea that “men don’t cry.”

Those of you who watched US movies in the 1990s probably saw, at least once, that scene from the movie “A League of their Own.” In it, a gruff, alcoholic baseball manager (Tom Hanks) is belittling one of his players on his all-woman’s baseball team for crying, saying “There’s no crying in baseball!” (in a very whiny, high-pitched voice. Think Woody!)

It’s a funny, if a bit heartbreaking, scene, mostly because Hanks inhabits that character so well. But it makes me wonder? A) Was his statement true and if so, why was it true? Why was there no crying in baseball (Seattle Mariner fans, please remember that the era that movie depicted took place well before Joey Cora!)? The movie was trying to get us to look at gender stereotypes, so was pointing out that part of the answer is “because men have always played baseball and men don’t cry.”

I think it is safe to say that this has changed a lot since the World War II era of the film, and maybe even has changed in my lifetime. But how much has it changed? I am not sure, because I feel I was lucky in that I never grew up believing in this taboo

Now, that’s not to say I was NOT conscious of it. Nor that I never had to deal with it and sometimes had to hold in my tears when I wanted to cry because of this taboo. First, I think every boy or man can relate to this. We’ve all “held it in!” Question is, then, how is it going to come out?

As for me, I admit it, I am a sensitive dude and am emotionally open. This means tears are often not far away. No, not because I am some sort of all-black-wearing depressed goth living in a basement with just an empty hamster cage for company (since Jimmy, my hamster died! Boo hoo!). No, because tears for me result from strong emotions. So when I watch a well-made action movie with a hero I love and she wins, I will cry in jubiliation! Or if I watch a movie about parenting and a scene reflects one of the challenging tribulations of raising my kids, I may cry. Or when my favorite side player gets his head smashed in by a brute just because he allowed his hubris to get the better of him at the worst possible moment? (There’s my nod to my fellow “Game of Thrones” fans…hell yeah, I cried when he died! And hell yeah, April is coming soon!!)

Here’s an actual example: Did you ever see “Toy Story 2”? My family (and me!) are rather obsessed with those movies, so we’ve seen them many times. Anyway, in all three of those very well-put together, emotional movies, perhaps the biggest cry-inducing scene comes in the middle of “Toy Story 2.” It is the scene where Jesse, the cowgirl that Woody meets, confides in Woody about her past. She tells him how loved she was by the child who cared for her. And how happy those days were. Sadly, that girl grew up and one day left Jesse in a box with other discarded toys on the side of the road. Jesse tells Woody how crushed she was and that she no longer believes in getting close to a child because she doesn’t want to go through that eventual heartbreak again. (See, I told you it was sad!) The scene is very poignant and just trying to recall it now and write about it is making my eyes water up. (A quick aside about an odd cultural comparison: Both “Toy Story” and the famous folk song “Puff the Magic Dragon” deal with the loss of innocence of childhood, how the toys miss their former playmates, and the loss of imagination and that gives both a VERY bittersweet core. Which is why I love them!)

Now, does the fact that my eyes are watering up as I reflect on the sadness of being left behind by someone you love make me less of a man? Even if it is a toy, an inanimate object, mourning humans. For me, it is the emotion itself that is sad. I put myself in the shows of the toy and I feel its pain (thank you, Mr. Clinton!).

I think perhaps the reason we tell men not to cry is so they can “be the strong ones.” Be the rock for the women and children of the world to rely upon. So if times are tough, the man will just pucker up and not let his emotions overwhelm his ability to act.

If looked at that way, I can understand where this taboo comes from. At least a bit. After all, we need to be strong sometimes, if not for ourselves, but for the people around us. It’s a very honorable thing to be strong for someone, I think.

But again, though, if we dig a bit deeper, we get to the understanding that there is this idea that crying equals weakness. Is that true? I suppose our culture makes this connection between weakness and crying because crying makes a person emotionally open and vulnerable. Show your cards emotionally and perhaps someone tougher or meaner will take advantage of you. So keep those emotions inside. Or learn not even to feel them in the first place!

Ultimately, there are MANY things that can make us cry, but at the root, crying is an expression of strong feelings, no matter if we think of them as “positive” ones like joy or “negative” ones like sorrow. And crying allows us to express those feelings.

So do men who don’t cry NOT feel? Is that how they avoid crying? Perhaps that is partly the case, they train themselves to live life rather robotically, so they don’t feel the emotions inside.

But come on, you KNOW the answer to my question is: Of course men feel!

We see it all the time.We see the fist pumps and high fives of men feeling excitement and a want to celebrate when we watch ANY athletic contest (though the NFL, or No Fun League, seems to want to regulate this expression of positive emotion, but that’s a post for another time!). We also see men feeling and expressing anger—any local bar brawl is usually fueled, at least in part, by anger; and on a bigger scale, don’t you think wars are fueled by anger? Now of course we put a limit onto what behaviors men (or women) can do when motivated by anger, but the point is we let men express anger and we see them doing this every day. Just so long as they aren’t crying in anger, right! That would be crossing the line!

So here’s where I’m going with this: Hasn’t all this “no crying in manhood” nonsense resulted in the men who follow the rule burying their emotions and then having those emotions come out in less healthy, controllable ways? Now, just writing that last sentence makes me feel like I could interrupt my flow here and go look for studies showing the health benefits of crying to “prove my point.” But I’m not going to do that, because I am sure they exist (or if they don’t, such studies will exist).

They exist! (http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/health-and-families/features/how-crying-can-make-you-healthier-1009169.html)

Still, even without the studies, I know this because it’s my experience.

EVERY TIME I cry, afterwards I feel better.

And more than that, clearer. Not only physically, as my eyes are refreshed from the tears, but emotionally and psychologically, I feel clearer about where I am at. I often have more insights and, get this, more strength. Not sure if they have studies for that, I just know a good cry means I’ve dealt with some emotions and worked through them both mentally and physically.

Ultimately, could it be that crying is the BEST way to allow emotions that are “getting the better of us” to be let out? That way we can get back to the business of living, but in an emotionally honest way? I mean, if you watch the Wilson interview, he is NOT trying to hold in his tears at the start, but after he allows himself to cry and show how he honestly feels, he is able to come back down to a place where he is able to rather eloquently discuss the things he felt and went through at the end of that game. Had he held those tears in from the get-go would he have been so lucid? Or would he have been able to answer so honestly?

I think you can also see by the way the interview ends that by allowing himself to cry and feel and express his emotions, Wilson has really opened up, to the point where he breaks the often-very-strong wall between athlete and media. He looks at Erin Andrews and says in an awe-filled, grateful voice, “I’m going to the Super Bowl again.”

If I could ever talk to Andrews, I would love to talk to her about this one moment. She actually broke the wall, too, and looked back at Wilson and said, “Yes, you are” and, maybe it is just me, but I felt like you could tell she was really happy for him. What a moment! (Note: I am editing this the day after writing and realized I CAN at least tell Andrews via Twitter how beautiful and poignant that moment was. So I just did!)

And does that moment exist if Wilson hadn’t cried and just been himself?

I write this last part, “just be yourself,” because I recognize that some people are just not as naturally inclined to feel and show their emotions as others. For that reason, I am NOT saying every man should be a constant wellspring of tears! Nor every woman. I

Here’s the gist: Let’s get rid of the “no crying in manhood” nonsense and allow men to express their emotions through crying if they want to, all right? Don’t you think our world would be healthier?

Seahawks Fans, Relax (Some Hopefully Encouraging Thoughts About Today’s Loss to San Diego)

I’m writing this mostly for my friends back in Washington who are seemingly distraught over watching the Seahawks lose to San Diego on the road today. Folks, relax.

Let’s put things in perspective. The best kind of loss an NFL team can have is a non-conference road loss. Remember the Hawks’ first loss last year? That’s right, it was at Indianpolis, a non-conference road opponent. How did that season work out for us?

Also, as a USC grad who was crazy about Carroll back when most of you despised him, I can tell you that losing in the NFL means nothing compared to a loss in the BCS days of college football. I take you back to a Thursday night in September of 2008 when top-ranked USC, coming off a 35-3 demolition of Ohio State in LA, got beaten 27-21 at Oregon State mostly because of a tiny running back named Jacquizz Rodgers. At that time, the national media instantly created a narrative that USC was now out of the running for the national championship and in spite of the fact that the Trojans went on to win every game from then on out and set school-records for points allowed (an amazing 9 points per game, with 10 of 12 games holding the opponent to 10 points or less), somehow we were passed up for Oklahoma and Florida, both who also had one loss. Mostly, it was because Florida was the defending champs and Oklahoma was a record-setting offense and I’m sure you Hawks fans remember before the Super Bowl that the pundits picked the team with the record-setting offense to beat the team with the great defense because, hey, offense is sexy and defense is not. My point is, the NFL is a long season and except for two teams, nobody has made it through without losing at least one game (and one of those teams, the 2007 Patriots, lost in the Super Bowl).

Which brings me to another thing close to my heart. Some of you who I hope are reading this went to high school with me and thus likely had your passion for winning football shaped, in part, by our Curtis Vikings. Did we win every game in those two seasons we won the state title? Nope, we lost to Lakes one year and the next at Pasco. It was at that time that I learned the idiom a “blessing in disguise” because sometimes what unites a team is going through the wrenching emotional difficulty of a loss more than winning every game, week in and week out, which can lead to a false sense of invicibility.

I write all this on a weekend where I just couldn’t win anything—whether it was football or my life in general—and yet, you may be surprised that my mood is rather buoyant. I have learned to laugh when the Universe tosses me one of these weekends where the stars seem aligned against me, because I know they are inevitable and usually outside of my control, and I also know that for every weekend like this, I’ll likely have a weekend (or two) where everything seems to go my way.

So, don’t sweat it. I’m sure the team is disappointed and wishes they were coming back home 2-0 and not 1-1. But look at some of the other NFC powers—the Saints are already 0-2 and lost on the road to the Browns today! And we already have a tie-breaker over Green Bay since we beat them head-to-head.

Ultimately, what I hope you can learn from me is not to feel such pressure for the Hawks to win that you can’t enjoy it any more. I went through in the 2005 season when USC was coming off two straight national titles and had won like 20 games in a row and was everybody’s favorite to repeat. When we lost the final versus Texas on one of the last plays of the game, it hurt but after a day or two I realized quickly that life goes on and that I’d been blessed to be a fan of such a good time that brought me such joy from week to week. From then on, I watched each game with less of a sense of pressure to win, and more of a sense of just wanting to enjoy the experience. That’s why today, I was able to appreciate how well the Chargers were playing and even applaud some of them, even as they were likely leading to a Seahawks loss. Being a fan is great, but being a fanatic is not. Learn the difference and you’ll enjoy the experience all the more. With that all said,  go Hawks!

A Seahawks fan’s stream of consciousness thoughts written right after NFC Championship Game

Okay, with the game having just ended about 10-15 minutes ago, I’ve settled down enough to record my immediate reaction. Phew. What a nerve-wracking three hours!

Before I go any further, let me set the scene. I am an American who grew up in University Place, Washington (which, coincidentally, got a mention on the broadcast as the home of the 2014 US Open) and have been a lifelong Seahawks fan. For the past decade, though, I’ve been living and teaching English in central Japan. Right before the start of this season, I purchased an iPhone and found that I could put my NFL GamePlan app on it, which meant that I could watch games on my phone no matter where I was. I was also lucky in that this year, my school schedule is such that I have no classes on only one day of the week—Monday, so I have been able to enjoy Sunday NFL action all year. Usually, I would wake up around 3:30 or 4 and watch the early games on my big screen TV at my house and cheer for my fantasy players and the Seahawks. Today, I woke at 4:30, to give me 30 minutes to prepare breakfast before the start of the AFC title game.

Anyway, the point is, I watched every second of the Hawks-Niners game on my iPhone while sitting in a VERY quiet teacher’s room at work. I’m an emotional guy who likes to make noise when I watch games, so this is NOT an easy situation, you understand. But I think I did a good job. I know on the first play when Wilson fumbled, I said “Fuck” a little too loud and the old man sitting across from me gave me a curious stare. And he also saw me react in joy for the Lynch touchdown and at the end of the game when the Hawks sealed it with the pick in the end zone.

 Let me add something to all this. Even though I grew up in Washington, I went to USC. I wanted to be a journalist and USC has one of the top programs in the country. The other big draws about USC were the SoCal weather and the USC football team. The 1990s were a rough time, for the most part, for USC football, so I’d sort of lost interest by the turn of the century. But then in 2001, along came this guy Pete Carroll. Even though the team struggled at first under him, I liked his enthusiasm. He was so different from the previous coach, who shall remain nameless (this is standard USC football fan protocol). And then they started to win. Over the next few years, I became crazy about USC and our new coach. I moved to Japan in the summer of 2004, and at that time had no computer, no iPhone, nothing. So my dad would videotape (yup, remember those) the games, and I would do my best to avoid results all week and wait for the tapes, which usually arrived on Friday and then I’d stay up late Friday night watching them. I was lucky enough to go home for Christmas and on January 4^th, 2004, my 33^rd birthday, I went to a local watering hole with some friends and watched USC demolish Oklahoma for the national title. What a rush!! And the next several years, while we never won another title, USC was always competitive and one of the top programs in the country. In fact, even when we lost, we rarely lost by more than 7 points.

 So in 2009, when Carroll left USC for Seattle, I was disappointed to lose him, but excited to see what he’d do with my Seahawks.

 And so here we are. After four seasons, Carroll has built this team from a bottom feeder into an NFC champion and Super Bowl participant. The Pacific Northwest is absolutely crazy over this team. So crazy that I was seriously concerned if they lost this game. You see, the Northwest is famous for a lot of things—coffee, Microsoft, rain, great rock music—but it’s also infamous for being the suicide capital of the nation. Not to make light of such a subject, but I posted on Facebook that I hoped the suicide hotline workers were getting ready for some overtime if the Seahawks were to lose. Thankfully, that didn’t happen. I say this all in jest, but there’s a part of me that is being serious here. You see, I was the type of person who, when I was a teenager, used to get way too worked up about the teams I followed. I was crazy about my high school sports teams. Fortunately, we had good sports teams, but when we lost, I sometimes got so bummed out about it, or so angry. Then, I went to college and I was trying to become a sportswriter and I learned something that has been invaluable for me, and that is to watch games from a more impartial perspective. Over the years, I’ve been able to combine both that skill along with my love of being a fan, so that when my teams do lose, I don’t have such an awful emotional reaction to them. Unfortunately, I think a lot of people struggle with this. Our culture is so crazy about winning that a loss feels like a blow to our very person. Anyway, I’ve also come to expect my teams to lose, because this mentally prepares me for that possibility. I am NEVER cocky about a team and am sometimes criticized by my friends for being too pessimistic.

Since December, when the Hawks lost at San Fran, I’ve been worried that the Seahawks wouldn’t have enough to get out of the tough NFC to the Super Bowl. Something wasn’t jiving with their offense, even though the defense and special teams were excellent. So as I watched San Fran win eight in a row, I was very worried about this one and never felt like it was a sure thing. My prediction at the start of last week was Seattle 20, San Fran 17, but I got a bit more confident the past two days and went with 20-13. Looks like both were great guesses, as San Fran scored 17, and the Hawks won by 6, rather than 7.

Anyway, this has been something a dream season. Even back when the Hawks pulled off that miracle comeback over a then-solid Houston team, I felt like perhaps this was our team’s year. The Monday Night ugly win at St. Louis was another I watched at school and I was pumped they won, because I felt the win there could be the difference in winning the division or not and it turned out I was right. Had they lost that game, we would have been 12-4 and the Niners would have won the West. Do the Hawks win this game in San Fran? Who knows.

Now, I have to say this. I have been critical of Colin Kaepernick for the past two years. A lot of it has to do with just stupid emotion on my part and based on silly reasons such as I CANNOT STAND HOW HE WEARS BASEBALL CAPS!! That said, I see him as an incredible athletic talent with the potential to be a great NFL QB, but sometimes he is prone to dumb mistakes, especially in Seattle. So I was surprised this wasn’t a topic of discussion for most analysts leading up to the game. Anyway, for three quarters, he looked like he’d overcome all that. But then he had the fumble an the really bad pick that lead to Seattle’s final field goal. But the drive he led the Niners on at the end of the game was incredible. So even though he threw the pick that ended the game, I wouldn’t hold that against him. That was just a great defensive play and up until then, it looked like the Niners were going to win. Still, they needed one more play so he had to try. Anyway, I watched this game and felt blessed because I realized that the Kaepernick-Wilson rivalry has only just begun. Earlier today we saw Brady-Manning for the third time in the AFC title game, and the 16^th time overall. But with Kap and Wilson in the same division, they may end up facing each other more than those two legends. And while they may never become the expert passers either of those two are, they are clearly better athletes that, in my opinion, makes them a lot more exciting to watch. Both have shown some serious growth and it really is amazing how similar they are, not only athletically, but in their personal life, as well. Anyway, over the past week, I have now grown to respect him and look forward to watching his career along with Russell Wilson’s.

But what about the Seahawks, huh? Down 10-3 at the half, it felt like they weren’t out of it, but hadn’t really got much going offensively. I did feel like we could have been in a lot worse shape because San Fran did the little things in the first half and got the breaks. But as the game went on, those things changed. After Lynch tied the game at 10 and the Niners went on that back-breaking TD drive where they had three plays of over 20 yards and where Kap fumbled but the Hawks were unable to recover, I thought this might not be their day. But then Baldwin, who I’d written earlier was not much of a kick returner and how I felt letting Leon Washington go was a mistake, busts that 65 yard kick return and I knew we were in for a classic ending. 

One thing I’m VERY happy about is that blown fumble call by the refs didn’t end up leading to points for Seattle. Had the Hawks won because of that, that would be all the talk. So I sort of cheered when Marshawn fumbled and San Fran recovered. I was frustrated Carroll didn’t take the easy 3, but NOT AT ALL surprised as he’s always gone for it in such situations both in Seattle and at USC. Speaking of that play, boy, it was brutal watching Bowman’s leg on the replay. Reminded me of Joe Thiesmann from the 1980s. Here’s hoping for a full recovery for one of the best defenders in the game. 

Let’s see what else. Let’s give a shoutout to my fantasy kicker, Steven Hauschka. He has been money for most of the season and he was again today. One of the strange aspects of my watching games on my phone is that, even though I turned off the cellular usage for my CBS Sports App, I still kept getting score updates about 30 seconds to 2 minutes before the score happens. So when Hauschka made the second kick, I was shocked because the score didn’t show on my screen. Maybe it took 2 hours for the changed settings to kick in? Not sure, but anyway, I was happy to see he made it as a 6-point lead felt a lot better than 3-point lead.

And then on the final drive, I see a Facebook post from my friend in St. Louis, that says, “What a pick! Congrats Bryan!” and at that point, the Malcolm Smith pick (fight on, Trojan!) was still two plays away from happening on my screen. Still, thanks Steve as my nerves had had enough by that point! A part of me regrets such delays, but it was re-assuring to see that the drive was going to fail. Phew!

Last thing I am going to comment on as it is lunch time here. Richard Sherman, what a freak. Did you catch his post game interview? I am going to look for it on YouTube and link it here; http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XPkLMmGVhck. An interview of legend! He is absolutely hilarious and would drive you crazy if he wasn’t yours, but fortunately he is OURS. Okay, that’s all. Go Hawks! Beat the Broncos!!

The Life of an Ex-Pat Football Fan

For a lot of us Americans, fall means football. As the air starts to cool, we can’t help but think of watching gladiators do battle on the gridiron. So today, with the college season beginning this past weekend and the pro season only days away, I’d like to tell you about what it’s like being an ex-pat living in Japan and trying to follow football.

First, I want to establish how much football has been a part of my life ever since I was a little kid. Some of my fondest memories of childhood are from crisp fall days watching the games on TV with my brother and dad and then going out into the backyard or the park and throwing the ball around. In that way, football is nostalgic.

When I was in high school, my team won back-to-back state championships and I was one of the crazy fans that went to every game, even the games on the other side of the state that required I stay in a hotel for the night. Those are some of my fondest memories of high school.

When I chose to go to college at the University of Southern California in the early 1990s, one of the reasons I was drawn to that school was because it had a great football program with a great football program. I was dreaming of being a sportswriter and wanted to be around players who would one day become professionals. Unfortunately, USC (the Trojans) struggled for much of the 1990s but in the early part of the 2000s, they turned things around and became the predominant program in the country for a few years. Needless to say, I tuned in every Saturday and cheered them on.

So when I moved to Japan, I have to admit I was worried: how was I going to follow this sport I loved from a country that could care less about it?

My first fall here, I tried to do so by subscribing to an English newspaper, reading the Internet updates at work (I didn’t have a computer at home) and having my dad send me videotapes of USC games. It was hard to wait and when those videotapes arrived, usually the following Friday, I would be elated.

Anyway, that fall was hard. Hard enough that it convinced me I had to buy a computer and get up to speed for the 2005 season.

For the next few years, I bought an Internet subscription program called ESPN Gameplan. It cost about $100 and had about 15 games per week which I could watch live or on demand.

Now, here’s the thing. When you live halfway around the world and yet want to keep participating in live events from your home country you are going to have to make some sacrifices. Notably, sleep. You see, the early college games usually began around 2 a.m. Sunday morning Japan Time. Fortunately, USC often started closer to 5 a.m. or 8 a.m. on Sunday morning, so my usual plan was to wake up around 4 or 4:30 and watch the second round of games, which began either at 4:30 (early season, when daylight savings is still going) or 5:30 (starting in November). That said, a couple times a year, I pull all-nighters and watch the early games, as well.

At first, GamePlan was a godsend. I even emailed ESPN to tell them how happy I was with it. The picture was reasonably clear and I loved being able to watch the games on demand any time later that week. However, that first year or two was by far the peak of the service. By the third year (2007), it was starting to become less and less reliable. Sometimes I’d sign in and the game wouldn’t come on until 20 minutes after it had started. And one season they didn’t start offering the service until the third week of the season.

Around that time (2007, I think), I started looking around the Internet for other options. Due to the advances in technology, I realized that there were plenty of people offering the games on free “illegal” streams. Now, I put the word “illegal” in quotes because I’ve always felt like there’s nothing illegal about what I’m doing. Sure, the people broadcasting the games are violating some sort of law somewhere, but for a fanatic like me who has no other choice, I’m not about to let the law get in the way of my obsession. The way I see it, if ESPN or some other website all of the sudden started offering something like GamePlan again, I’d be more than willing to pay for the service, so long as it was reliable.

In fact, that’s precisely what I did this year with regard to the NFL. Let me tell you about my relationship to the NFL. As a kid, I followed the Seattle Seahawks and loved the pro game. I remember watching guys like Steve Largent and, of course, Joe Montana and Jerry Rice.

However, for the last decade or so, I’ve not been a huge NFL fan. Back when I was in college in the early 1990s, I stopped caring too much about the pros. At that time, I was working as a “stringer” (a part-time reporter) for the Los Angeles Daily News sports department. This meant that on fall Friday nights, I’d cover high school football games.

So my weekends were: Friday night high school football, and then a full day of college football on Saturday. By the time the NFL Sundays rolled around, I wanted to do something else with my days. I lived in LA and hated the two teams there and my hometown Seahawks were a laughingstock so this wasn’t much of a sacrifice.

Anyway, this pattern established itself: Saturdays were for football, Sundays were for other things. However, about five years ago, I joined a Fantasy Football league with some other ex-pats here in the area where I live. For the first three years, I really didn’t care. As a result, my teams usually ended in last place.

I’m not sure what happened but about two years ago, with my team dwelling in the cellar, I suddenly felt like it was time to get into this thing. Perhaps it was because my friend traded me Michael Vick and he started going crazy in leading my team to some big wins, but suddenly I was interested. I barely missed the playoffs but from that point I was hooked.

So last year, not only would I wake up early on Sundays, but I started getting up early on Mondays to watch the pro games so I could follow my fantasy team. I was also interested in the Seahawks because they were showing signs of life under Coach Pete Carroll, that same animated guy who’d led my Trojans to glory for the past decade at the college level.

By the end of the year, though, I was tired of the inconsistency of the free, “illegal” streams I was watching. I’d seen some ads about a thing called NFL GamePass where I could watch up to 4 games at once in high quality both live and on-demand. So for the end of the season and the playoffs, I bought it to try it out. And I loved it! Even on my slow computer, it was great being able to follow everything so easily.

Which leads me to this year. Last spring we bought a new computer and around the first of August, just as training camp was starting, I paid $270 for a full year’s worth of NFL GamePass. My wife was surprised at how expensive it was, but I told her it was a really quality service. Now, I can watch the games live and during the week I can watch them on demand. It also has the option of watching “condensed” games, which is just all the action—no time in between plays, no advertisments. Thus, a three-hour game becomes a thirty minute game.

Anyway, this is always one of my favorite times of the year: everybody has hopes for their teams and feels excited to see how the season will play out. In the college world, this year my Trojans are one of the top-ranked teams and have an explosive offense led by a veteran quarterback. They opened their season with a 49-10 win over Hawaii. I really did feel like it was a return to the form of several years ago, because despite the final score, I felt like they didn’t play nearly their best: lots of dropped passes, basically no running game, et cetera. That said, they looked good and have me excited.

Before I close, I should also mention how excited I am for my Seahawks. I think they have a decent chance to go 9-7 or 10-6 and maybe sneak into the playoffs. Their defense will be one of the league’s best, as will their rushing attack. And their rookie QB Russell Wilson has the make-up of a star, despite the fact that he is “not tall enough to play quarterback.” I’ve always hated all those limitations the scouts put on certain players so naturally I cheer for players to defy them.

Anyway, for those of you who can watch games during the normal hours of the day, please think about this: across the world, in the middle of the night, a 39-year-old married dude is waking up to watch along with you. He’ll try to be quiet enough that he doesn’t wake his wife and two kids. In fact, he often tells his fellow fathers/husbands in the States that he actually considers these nocturnal time slots to be a plus: if the games were on during the day, he’d invariably have to deal with family issues when he just wants to give his attention to the game (“No, honey, I don’t want to go shopping!”). The way I see it, sleep can wait (and usually does until about 1 or 2 o’clock Sunday afternoon when I get very sleepy). Okay, everyone, it’s football time, let’s get this thing started!