I didn't think I'd ever live to say  this, but here it comes:  I don't give a shit about football anymore.  In fact, I don't really give a shit about most sports now that I've seasoned into an old fart.  And you see, right there is the word - season.  We're so damn in love with sports in this country that we've even designated entire seasons of the year to them - like with football season, which we're right in the middle of.  Notre Dame has only won a single game, and that's something that should make me happy (never liked 'em) . . . but I don't give a shit.  Ole Miss, where I once worked on a doctorate, is a disaster on the field, and again, I don't give a shit.  Mississippi State is doing better, where I got two degrees, and still I don't give a shit.  And the biggie for me - OU beat Texas, and I could care less.  

When it comes to pro ball, my giveashitter is sure enough broken.  Who cares?  Not me for sure.  Football can now be officially designated as a passing fancy with me - one that lasted for about 60 years . . . but it's finally over.  My grandson is playing high school football down on the border at a large high school, and I have not been to see him play as of this writing.  His daddy, now coaching down there, is a former all-American college defensive tackle . . . a big dude and still a muscle man in his early forties.  Yeah, lights up the scales about close to 300 and is a long way from fat.  And my grandson seems to have avoided the runt gene in the family.  He's wearing a 15 size shoe, is tall, and has aspirations of being like his daddy . . . and he may get there . . . and I sure wish I cared more about it.  Football.  Yeah, but what makes me happy is having a grandson who loves books, and this kid does love to read.  

Mly grandson (his name is Colton Hamilton) had a big picture of Michael Vick hanging on his wall last year, but now he's decided Vick is a jerk.  He got some encouragement from me with that one, but being a real dog lover is what did it.  I just finished reading Donnell Alexander's article about it being a bad year for black jocks . . . and it has been for sure.  And Donnell is probably right when he says blacks get more scrutiny than whites, but it's not just a racial thing.  It's more a thing of simple math - since they make up almost all the players in the league, they're gonna get the attention.  Whites get less attention because there are less of them, by a wide margin.  It's like throwing darts at a board with a small white bulls-eye, you're chances of hitting it are much less than hitting the bigger colored areas.  Michael Vick got nailed 'cause he's a jerk, plain and simple.  Being white wouldn't have helped him.  He could have been the color of clear water, and they would've nailed his ass.  

Don't think I'm taking issue with Donnell on this one, 'cause I'm not.  He makes some valid points in his article, and anyone who's been up close to sports knows he's mostly on the mark.  Whether it's targeting or just math, race shouldn't be a consideration in sports.  The player with the most talent ought to play - period.  Likewise, the player who screws up off the field ought to get nailed for it, regardless of race.  My grandson plays where there's only a few whites on the entire team, but he's a starter and doing well.  He says there's just one black kid on the starting team, and all the rest are Latinos.  Along the border that's mostly what you will find, the frontierizos, the borderlanders who are mostly of Mexican blood.  

Colton doesn't seem to care one way or another who plays around him, and that's the way it should be.  He doesn't come from a home that teaches racial prejudice.  God only knows there are enough sources for it outside the home, though - and the fields and arenas where sports are played are sure not without it.  I'd like for my grandson to take away from football, or any sport he decides to play, something a lot more worthwhile than set notions about race.  I hope that football becomes a passing fancy with him . . . after he has had a decent relationship with it for some time.  Maybe he'll be a faster learner than his grandpa.

Yeah, I have sure loved football and lots of other sports over they years, but I'm finally over it.  And I wasn't just a casaul observer either.  Football wasn't my game, but rodeo was for a while.  I ended up getting to stand on an awards stage and receive national championship team trophies with my guys on several occasions - in college rodeo, a sport that's every bit as tough and demanding as football.  Not many years ago I sat in my living room one night and watched the PRCA Finals from Las Vegas, and noted with pride that almost half of the bronc riders who'd made it there were young men I had a hand in recruiting.  That's the game in any college sport, the recruiting, and we were good at it.  Most of those young men graduated from the university where I headed up the rodeo program for a while.  Am I proud of that?  Damn right . . . but I don't miss it.  I don't even watch it anymore.  I'm over it now - something that was a lot more to me than a passing fancy.  Football should've been easy to brush aside, but it wasn't.

So what caused me to lose interest in football and most other sports?  Well, it sure as hell wasn't Michael Vick or any other jerk playing the game.  It didn't have anything to do with race or any other social condition or problem.  I just got sick of it.  I just got to where it seemed like a stupid waste of my time.  It's just a game, and my interest in games has changed.  I read more now, and I sure write more.  Writing takes time, as does dealing with people who would like to get your stuff in print.  I'm a real moron when it comes to things like that - dealing with a publisher.  Everytime I play that game, I come away from it thinking, "Shit!  I think maybe I'm qualified to serve in the Bush Administration."  

And speaking of shitty games, now there's one for you.  But we won't go there.  I'm getting over that too.

D. Paz,  10/11/07