When Hunter Thompson came to peace with his impending suicide in February 2005, he sat at his desk in Woody Creek, CO and on his iconic typewriter began to pen what would become his final written words. As a man who wrote not only for a living, but also as his primary means of personal correspondence, he no doubt chose each word with care.
No More Games. No More Bombs. No More Walking. No More Fun. No More Swimming. 67. That is 17 years past 50. 17 more than I needed or wanted. Boring. I am always bitchy. No Fun – for anybody. 67. You are getting Greedy. Act your old age. Relax – This won’t hurt.
At the top of this brief, grim-but-oh-so-Hunter manuscript he handwrote a title--"Football Season is Over."
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Football season is over. These are tough words for any fan to swallow. In fact, if your team is one of the 31 that didn't win the Super Bowl, you are guaranteed a disappointing end to the season. This disappointment is invariably followed by months of agonized waiting. Waiting to see how your team makes out in the draft. Waiting to see how those picks look in camp. Waiting to pretend that preseason football does it for you. And finally, waiting for kickoff on opening weekend. It is little wonder, then, that while sitting at his desk that February day (just weeks after the Super Bowl) Hunter chose these words to title his final letter.
Luckily for us, the 2010-2011 campaign is not yet over. My beloved Green Bay Packers will vie for the NFC Championship on Sunday against our oldest, fiercest rival--the Chicago Bears.
As the game approaches, and as I reflect on the Packers' run leading up to this point, one simple fact has made itself clearer to me than ever before, and that fact is this: Football is a feeling. It goes beyond simple sport. It's more than big games, big hits, touchdowns, wins and losses, etc.
Football the emotion is inside every fan. Like any emotion, pinning it down precisely is difficult. As with love, joy, anger, sorrow, or any other human emotion, football varies in scope, degree, and interpretation from person to person. Like love, one can only truly know football through experience.
When you get pissed that your wife scheduled your kid's birthday party during the game, that's football. When you lie in bed wondering how you can get out of your shift on Sunday, or whether you'll be able to make it without a job for a while if worse comes to worse, that's football. When your excitement over an event on or off the field is so intense that the only thing you can scream to do justice to the feeling is, "FOOTBALL!" well, you better believe that's football.
These are but a few examples of course, though I'm certain that if you are a fan you can think back and remember having felt it. For good or ill, football is an emotion that runs deep in those of us fortunate enough to know it. I believe that recognizing, understanding, and embracing football as an emotion is a critical step in growing as a fan and person.
The highs are incomparable, the lows are excruciating, and there's no better way to describe the entirety of it than by calling it what it is... FOOTBALL!
