Not a football fan here. I’ve never watched a football game on TV (let alone live) in my life that I can remember – at most, occasional brief snippets if my father had it on (he wasn’t a frequent watcher) and I happened to walk through the room.
At age of fifteen, in 10th grade, I was in a new school in a different state. The gym coach sat us down in a little classroom at one end of locker room and outlined a few football moves on the blackboard. No prior gym coach in my experience had EVER done that! Actually do some instructing? Unheard of! Then he sent us all out to play football.
Except I stayed behind in the locker room. I asked the coach to tell me something about football, because I knew absolutely zilch about the game. The coach was utterly astonished and dumbfounded that there existed anybody who knew utterly nothing about football.
But he took the time – about 20 minutes or so – to describe the basic rules of the game, the basic object of the game, what basically happens on each play, etc. – while intermittently exclaiming that he couldn’t believe anybody didn’t know how to play football – then sent me out to play football with the others.
The team captain did something that NOBODY had ever done before (or since). He asked me if I could catch a football. I said I didn’t know. He said we’ll try it – and told me to go out to catch a pass. (I had only just learned a few minutes ago what that all meant.) So the play started, I ran out, AND I ACTUALLY CAUGHT THE PASS, and I even knew what I was supposed to do with it then. But another opposing player immediately “tackled” me (actually, just pulled the velcro flag off). Still, we gained a few feet doing that.
That was in 1966. From that day to this, I’ve never caught another pass, nor even tried.
NOW, fast forward to February 4, 2018: I had been planning to go fly a glider, but the tow pilot wanted to go home earlier than usual to see the Super Bowl. So the schedule was abbreviated for the day, and since I was last up on the schedule, I got dropped. So I stayed home and slept most of the say.