Mark KennedyI have never taken a snap from center or worn a set of shoulder pads. Yet football is an important part of my life.
Monday night, I was awake three hours past my usual bedtime to watch the Pittsburgh Steelers, my favorite NFL team, play the San Diego Chargers. It was a regular-season game between two 2-2 teams. The Super Bowl it was not. Yet I poured more passion into the game than in just about anything else I did last week.
What is it about football that binds us and lifts us to religious-like levels of ecstasy and dread? You know it's true. Raise your hand if you know a University of Tennessee football fan whose mood was elevated last week after a big SEC win over Georgia.
What keeps Americans hooked on football? Is it this tradition? Or maybe a throwback lust for physical aggression? Or perhaps it's the shared community of being part of a fanbase? Or the need for diversion from our scripted, First World lives?
I suspect it's a combination of all of those factors, nourished by 24-hour sports television, gambling and really good Ranch dip.
In the South, the love of football also seems to be genetic, or at least so culturally significant that we pass it along to our children like Grandma's silverware.
My two sons, ages 13 and 8, are soccer kids. They play on travel soccer teams and have never played organized football. Yet last weekend, they spent hours punting a football back and forth to one another in our backyard, giddy that their leg strength put them ahead of their football-playing peers in raw kicking skills.
My older son experienced his first game in Tennessee's Neyland Stadium a couple of weeks ago, and he was visibly awed by the sight of 102,000 fans. He has seen NFL games before, but the pageantry of college games is different.
At the same time, we were OK to leave after the third quarter to get a jump on traffic. On the shuttle bus back to our car, I observed a father and his adult daughter sharing a pair of earbuds on a small radio in complete silence, hoping silently - even fervently - for a Tennessee miracle that never materialized.
The next week, I took both boys to a sparsely attended University of Tennessee at Chattanooga Mocs game at Finley Stadium, home of excellent football and polite applause. There, they enjoyed the game, a 31-3 shellacking of a Southern Conference opponent, in a completely stress-free environment.
Meanwhile, a guy sitting a few yards away from us with purple hair, blue-and-gold striped pants and a Terrell Owens jersey, gave imaginary high fives to the air around him after every Mocs touchdown. In his own world, he was having a ball.
It strikes me that there are few things in modern life that encourage such community and joy. In that regard, football is a blessing.
So, bless our Southern hearts, pass the dip and get let's ready for kick-off.
Contact Mark Kennedy at mkennedy@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6645. Follow him on Twitter @TFPCOLUMNIST. Subscribe to his Facebook updates at www.facebook.com/mkennedycolumnist.