Yet another reason why H.E. and I are so well suited. We are not into sports, he and I, but we can root for a winning team, just like anybody else.

He was an audio/video geek in high school, a cameraman who would film the practiced plays and the games for the football coach. He got a varsity letter for it and could have posed with the football team for the yearbook if he wanted to, but he didn’t. At 6’1″ he was certainly big enough to play. People would mistake him for an adult even at the age of 15. But did he want to play football himself? No sir. That’s not his thing.

And me? I was a cheerleader. I was at every game, home and away. I knew at least 200 cheers, and most were for football. “First and ten. Do it again.” But I always had my back to the field and my face to the crowd, and every time our team made a touchdown, which was often, I’d run with the rest of the squad to the end zone and create a pyramid. Was I even interested in actually watching the game? No ma’am. That’s not my thing.

So there we both were, so close to football and not particularly into it. There are things more important to him—history, politics, aviation, navigation, films, broadcasting, and a number of other things. And me? I was more into reading, writing, music, art, dance, theater and a number of other things. We don’t do sports. We understand football. We just don’t care for it.

Unless it involves a team we can root for. We usually root for Navy in the Army/Navy game because H.E. was in the Navy at one time, and we usually root for the Chargers because I’m from San Diego. Outside of that, we tend to favor teams with heart.

Last night we watched the Tostitos Fiesta Bowl game between a college team from Boise, Idaho, and a much touted college team from Oklahoma. H.E. figured the game might go to Oklahoma at something like 50 to nothing, but the Boise State University Broncos had captured his imagination—a team from nowhere but with heart, the underdog.

Another thing he and I have in common. We tend to cheer for the underdog.

When USC played UCLA, we rooted for UCLA because it was the underdog. The underdog won. And when USC played Michigan, we rooted for USC because they were the underdog, and USC won.

For some reason, we just love to root for those most people would think will lose.

So there we were, cheering on Boise State Idaho, the Broncos, though it looked like they would lose. H.E. recorded the game, though he’s not the sort to record games, because they somehow managed not to be losing by 50. He figured it might be a good game, and he wanted to be able to watch it later in case he fell asleep towards the end.

And me? I watched the game with him.

Boise was in fact losing, but not by 50, not even by 25. They were actually playing a really good game, and H.E. would know because while he’s not into football, he recognizes great plays when he sees them. He did, after all, film many a game play.

He commented a lot on the coverage by Fox, which sucked. “They can’t seem to follow the ball.”

Then, towards the end of 4th quarter, it looked as if they would lose after all. They were down by a touchdown, and there were less than two minutes left. They were mid-field at 4th down and 18 yards from a 1st down. But for some reason, we kept watching, and Boise did a razzle dazzle kind of play, the sort you only see in uplifting team movies, where you see the players throwing the ball like a hot potato from one team member to the next, confusing the hell out of the other team.

And somehow, they got that touchdown.

Needless to say, the game went into overtime, and again, Oklahoma looked like it would win. But again, Boise surprised them, this time with an ancient play that hardly anyone uses, where they pretend to throw this way, while they’re slipping the ball to someone who runs that way. And they won the game.

And the man who cares nothing for sports, the man who didn’t know who Michael Jordan was, the man who would never call to me for a beer while propping his feet on the coffee table and watching a game, he played the last part of that game over and over and over again on the DVR, and I watched it with him while laughing.

I guess my human encyclopedia has an S volume after all. And that’s all right by me. 🙂

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