Football, the Only Religion That Never Left Me

By Christopher Moore

Football isn’t just a game to me.
It isn’t a hobby.
It isn’t something I casually watch on Sundays.

Football is a constant.
A ritual.
A calendar that kept turning even when my life wasn’t.

I’ve watched football in living rooms and barracks.
In hospital rooms and concrete places where days blur together and hope gets real quiet.
I’ve watched it overseas, sitting in a rotted out building on the other side of the world, watching a three AM kickoff, counting time by games left instead of dates.

I’ve watched it when I had nothing else that felt familiar.

And except for that one weekend after September 11th, 2001, football has always been there.

I started watching in 1986. I was five years old, sitting with my grandpa.
I didn’t understand schemes or coverages or why everyone got quiet before a kick.
But I understood this mattered.
I understood the respect.
The pause.
The way grown men spoke differently when the game was on.

And according to my grandpa, the Raiders were great and the Broncos will always suck.

From that moment on, football became a timeline of my life.

I remember Super Bowls the way some people remember birthdays.
Where I was.
Who I was with.
What kind of man I was trying to be at the time.

I remember The Catch.
The Drive.
Wide Right.
The Music City Miracle.
The Greatest Show on Turf.
The Tuck Rule.
The Helmet Catch.
Twenty eight to three.

Plays so big they stopped being moments and became language.

You don’t explain those to people who love football.
You just say the words and they nod.
Because they were there too.

I’ve loved players like family.
Joe Montana.
Jerry Rice.
Barry Sanders.
Larry Fitzgerald.

I’ve hated others like they personally wronged me.
Santonio Holmes.
And honestly, that’s pretty much it. He did wrong me. We will get there.

I’ve watched villains become legends and heroes fall apart in real time.
I’ve watched dynasties rise and decay.
Watched quarterbacks age in dog years.
Watched rules change, uniforms change, broadcasts go HD, then 4K, then everywhere all the time.

And still, Sunday feels like Sunday.

Football taught me patience before I knew the word for it.
It taught me that preparation matters, but chaos always gets a vote.
That sometimes you do everything right and still lose.
And sometimes, against all logic, you pull off a miracle.

Or sometimes Arizona plays perfect coverage in the end zone, Ben Roethlisberger throws what should be an out of bounds ball, it somehow gets caught for a touchdown, and my Cardinals lose their only Super Bowl appearance.

Seriously. Fuck Santonio Holmes.

Football taught me how to sit with disappointment.
How to celebrate without arrogance.
How to respect effort even in defeat.

During deployments, football reminded me what home felt like.
During jail, it reminded me time still moved forward, with or without you.
During hospitals, it gave me something to look forward to that wasn’t a chart, a diagnosis, or a therapy session concluding my head is fucked up.

Football didn’t fix my life.
But it anchored it.

Every season felt like a promise.
We’re still here. Let’s try again.

People say sports don’t matter.
They’re wrong.

Football mattered when the world felt unstable.
It mattered when I was unstable.
It mattered when I needed something predictable in a life that wasn’t.

This game has been with me longer than most people.
Longer than jobs.
Longer than places.
Longer than versions of myself that didn’t survive.

So yeah, football is kind of a religion to me.
Not because it’s perfect.
But because it never left.

Also, fuck Santonio Holmes.

-The Gun Loving Hippie Dad … Who Fixes Stuff

https://thegunlovinghippiedadwhofixesstuff.blog/flag-on-the-play/

Rants, repairs, and realness