A Modest Suggestion for Football Fans

Just about a year ago on the blog, I wrote a poem called "College Football". It was, suffice to say, anti-college football. And now that the people who play it and talk about it are pawing at the dirt to start anew, rather than denigrate football anew, I would like to offer a suggestion for helping you deal with it.

Some years ago, I read an interview that famed New York Times columnist Ira Berkow conducted with one of my most beloved actors, the late Walter Matthau. Matthau and his son Charlie came to any number of Los Angeles Lakers games over the years and had courtside seats. When the Lakers were on the road, you know what Matthau would do? Depending who the commentators were on teevee, he'd turn it down and put on a Mozart record. To Matthau, Mozart was a perfect background score as the men jumped and ran and danced around.

So this is what I suggest to the men and women who watch football this fall--if you find yourself tiring of the commentators who can't decide if they are unctuous, pompous or both at once, turn them down. But don't turn on the local radio broadcast, if you can help it--a quarterback sack would send him into an almost orgasmic wail. Turn on light, soothing, and mellow music. Anything will do, from most of the canon of Chopin to Ennio Morricone. You know what doing this does? It re-frames your thinking. You go from being inconsolable when Wossamatta U loses to just thinking, "It's only a game. They'll beat the Mud City Manglers next week and all will be right with the world again." Trust me. You'll thank me when you've got your child on your lap first thing Monday morning and you're smiling and not frowning.

But I also know that some of you don't do mellow, light or soothing. You're in luck; I'm willing to compromise. I hear Metallica makes some pretty appropriate football music...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xisIVhc64Ng