Of love and ESPN

I’m not one of those cute female sports nuts that guys love. You know, the kind who fills out her own Final Four bracket, can follow the puck at a hockey game (why can’t they paint that thing orange?) and thinks extra innings at a baseball game is a good thing.

Nope, that’s not me.

But I have come to love NFL football. Unlike most wives who dread being deserted on autumn Sundays to watch the kids and finish the Honey-Do list themselves, while their spouses disappear into the basement, I actually look forward to those Sundays for some quality time with my husband. Granted, we rarely get to sit and watch a complete game together. Our three kids tend to get in the way. But even if we sneak in a quarter uninterrupted, that’s something special.

It wasn’t always this way. When I met my husband, he was a displaced Washington Redskins fan living in Boston. (To his credit, he adopted the New England Patriots as his second-favorite team.) Despite the fact that my father is a high-school football coach, my uncle was a youth football coach, and another uncle was a scout for a pro football team, I shunned the sport. When my beloved would begin talking about a “screen pass” or a “flag on the play” and “three and out” (out of what?), my eyes would glaze over and I would go to my happy place. (Usually shopping online, preferably with his credit card.)

Eventually we moved to the Washington, DC area, and my husband became the proverbial pig in mud. We hung the Redskins flag off the front porch. We became season ticket holders. We sang the Redskins fight song (“Hail to the Redskins! Hail victory. Braves on the warpath. Fight for ol’ DC! …”).

And I started to like it.

I have to credit my husband for a big part of my transformation. He didn’t push me into spending autumn Sundays on the couch eating chicken wings; instead he gently coaxed me along. He patiently, and without sarcasm, answered my questions:

What again is a flea flicker?

Why does getting 10 yards in less than four downs make a first down?

Why is that one guy called the 'tight end,' when they all have such nice bums?

He took the Washington Post with him to work in the mornings, but left the Sports section of the Monday paper with me so I could bone up. I would anxiously await his arrival home from work on Monday evenings during the season so we could watch ESPN’s "Pardon the Interruption" together. He and his pal, Tivo, paused the show to explain after every third sentence. He always invited me to FedEx Field with him to see the game first, before asking his buddies (and still does).

What I’ve gotten out of this, besides a burgundy and gold wardrobe, is a special bond with my husband. No post-spat silence can keep us from talking about the game on Sunday evenings. Now when the Redskins lose, we’re both in a funk. And the highlight of my fall is that special Sunday when we hire a babysitter and venture out to the stadium together to see a game, watch other teams on TV in the lounge after the game and talk about the game the whole ride home.

But, unfortunately for my husband, my enthusiasm ends after the Super Bowl. He tries to entice me into falling for other sports. “Pitchers and catchers report [for spring training] in three days,” he’ll say. Besides perking up at the inevitable sign that spring is approaching, I’m not interested. The NFL was my first love, and will likely be my only love, much like my husband.

Cara Garretson is a writer who lives in Redskins Country. If you're a corporate IT manager, you can read her work on her day job, but you'd probably enjoy her DC Suburban Moms blog more.