The NFL likes to style itself America’s sport, and sure, the NFL is what America would like to be: all-encompassing, inescapable, and brand-managed with military precision. But with all due respect to The Shield, the sport that most clearly mirrors America isn’t the NFL, but rather its rambunctious, troublemaking, the-car-is-in-a-tree younger brother.
Here, I’ll prove it. Picture a college football Saturday in your mind. An American flag flutters in the early morning breeze as fog wreathes a silent, pristine campus. A line of alumni returns to their alma mater, tents and camp chairs in hand. You can hear a distant staccato of drums as the band begins to warm up. The scent of the first meat on the grill wafts through the air, and before long, you hear the crack of the first beer of the day. Sure, it’s not even noon yet, but game day rules are different.
Soon enough, the satellite dishes are in place, the TVs fired up. The cackling and preening on “College GameDay” and “Big Noon Kickoff” give way to the day’s first wave of games. By now, some tailgaters are on their second plate, some are on their second nap.
Eventually it’s time to make the pilgrimage to the stadium — it’s not hard to find, it’s just the biggest building on campus, and maybe even the state. You can see the smiles of the cheerleaders, the bellows of the frat bros, the entire crowd lustily singing along to the school fight song, even — especially — those lyrics school administrators tried to stop. You know the lines I’m talking about.
And then the team runs onto the field, and the kicker sets the ball on the tee. The tension cranks higher and higher, until you can feel it in your bones, your chest, your soul. The stadium — maybe it’s 10,000 strong, maybe it’s 100,000 — joins as one to hoot or growl or bark or roar, growing…
Source link : https://sports.yahoo.com/michigan-scandal-shows-why-college-football-is-americas-true-national-sport-144331332.html
Author : Yahoo Sports
Publish date : 2023-11-16 14:43:31
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