Why I Love Football

I know that it's terribly unfeminine of me, but I love football. The fact that I'm a Cuban woman makes my love of this men's game even more heinous, but there it is. I can't help myself.

So, why am I, as a woman, so enamoured of the game? For starters, I like the discipline required of the players. Their conditioning is critically important. They begin practice during the summer months and then work hard through the end of the season. Not only is their physical condition important, however, they have to be mentally tough and able to perform under pressure in front of huge crowds of sometimes hostile fans.

Football offers the players an opportunity to execute a plan in a very concrete way. Those guys are out there having a battle - sometimes in very adverse (hot or cold) circumstances. Their jobs require them to master body and mind in equal measures. Their success depends on the efforts of so many ....

It's not so very different from living the Christian life - individually and as the church. Would that the church could figure out the importance of playing as a team - that we can only win as a team, and that our conditioning (both physical an spiritual) affects the team's performance.

We're fighting a battle that actually has significance, but we frequently approach our lives with an inexcusable casualness. I don't mean that we should be serious all the time, but we should be serious about things that matter. And we should be ready to celebrate our victories - not strutting around and pounding our chests or doing some stupid looking dance in the end zone, but congratulating our teammates for sure.

So I guess that's why I love football. It reminds me that it's good to work hard, it's good to sweat, it's right to give my all again and again for the sake of the team - and especially for the Coach.

I think I'll go see what's playing on the NFL Channel...