When I was in college, a guy in my dorm wrote a column in the school newspaper’s sports page (which is, remarkably, available online) describing Texas football as a religion:

Growing up here, I have come to the conclusion that football is the official state religion of Texas.

Many Southern Baptists might disagree with me on this point, but I have yet to see a church that holds 60,000 followers or that has carpet which rivals the colorful plushness of Astro-Turf.

Football is as ingrained in our culture as the sacred word “y’all.” To a native Texan, a football stadium is a cathedral to which he must diligently make a pilgrimage on weekends.

Football is a faith with three holy days a week. The fall season means high school games on Friday nights, college games on Saturday afternoons, and professional games on Sundays.

I always thought that was a great observation, but if football really is a religion in Texas, then it is another way that I am an atheist.

Today being Super Bowl Sunday & all, it seemed like a good day to mention it. Or not. Whatever.

I’ve tried to like football. I really, really tried. I’ll watch a game and enjoy it now and then, but that’s not what I mean. Despite my descent from a long and proud line of Texas Longhorns, and despite more than 14 years of living within a few miles of Darrell K. Royal–Texas Memorial Stadium itself, I have never truly bled burnt orange. I might have watched the ‘Horns win the National Championship in 2006, but I was a fair-weather fan to my very core.

It’s not just the Longhorns, either. I cared a bit about the Rice Owls in college, but students paid for tickets with their tuition and the student section never filled up, so why the hell not? Everyone who was there at the time remembers October 16, 1994, the moment when everyone was united, if only for one day, in passionate Rice Owls fandom.

I never much cared about the Cowboys, and I was neither happy nor sad when the Houston Oilers moved to Tennessee. I cared some about my high school team (Go Mules!), but at least there I actually knew some of them.

At some point, I finally accepted that I just don’t care about football, and social conventions be damned, I can’t force myself to be more interested. YMMV.

Anyway, I was inspired to write this because of this io9 post by Robert T. Gonzalez. I concur with the following:

I have put serious effort into getting excited about football. I’ve read up on player stats, pored over team and player backstories, investigated the technical aspects of the game, and even participated in a couple of fantasy leagues. As a result, I possess what I think could best be described as a bookish appreciation for the allure of the game. What I’m clearly missing is something more visceral – an ineffable spark of fandom, an experience rooted in tradition, or perhaps a sense of devotion to what communications professor Michael Serazio so keenly identifies in this piece for The Atlantic as “the civic religion” that sports have come to embody in modern culture:

In fandom, as in religious worship, our social connections are brought to life, in the stands as in the pews. It serves as a reminder of our interconnectedness and dependency; it materially indexes belonging. Like others, I indulge the royal “we” when speaking of my team, though there is little evidence they need me much beyond ticket sales, merchandise, and advertising impressions. Nonetheless, as [French sociologist Émile Durkheim] long ago noticed, “Members of each clan try to give themselves the external appearance of their totem [Ed. Note: The “totem” concept, conceived of by Durkheim, is encapsulated by Serazio elsewhere in his essay as something that “gives believers a physical representation of that need for identity and unity”]… When the totem is a bird, the individuals wear feathers on their heads.” Ravens fans surely understand this.

My friends stopped inviting me to their football parties, I think in part because I was always confused. I feel no loss for the football, but maybe for the company. That’s another way I’m like Gonzalez, I guess:

And before someone brings this up, let me admit that I can and do enjoy drawing attention to my lack of interest in sports, if only to alert others to the fact that, if you invite me over to watch a game at your house, I will spend most of my time not on the couch, but making friends with the nearest bowl of guacamole.

Photo credits: vectorbelly.com; Eric R from Scranton, PA, USA (2006 Rose Bowl Celebration) [CC-BY-2.0], via Wikimedia Commons; theoatmeal.com.