Rep. Nathan Ballentine admits that he has a football addiction, which of course is the first step toward being cured of this truly awful disease:
I said it last year during the cigarette tax debate and I’ll say it again….”As a lifelong Gamecock fan, I know next year never comes.”
The sad thing is, I can’t quit it. Gamecock Football is perhaps one
of the most painful addictions you can have. It’s also one that has no
cure or a 12-step plan to kick the habit (that I know of). At least
with a cigarette tax increase, we may stop some folks from picking up
that miserable addiction. But how do you stop folks from Gamecock
Football?The verdict is still out for “next year” with the cigarette tax but after last week, us Gamecock fans have seen the ball pulled away again on another season.
As I say, this disease can be cured, although not without side effects, such as feeling smug about having quit, rather like ex-smokers. Observe as I self-righteously hold myself out as an example…
Nathan, I was once like you, but I managed to quit. And you know, it wasn’t all that hard. I just went cold turkey.
I did it on January 12, 1969. That was the day on which I became utterly convinced that football was a complete waste of time. I had invested years of cheering for Johnny Unitas and the Baltimore Colts, and they had finally prevailed over the hated Packers and won the NFL Championship. It was all over. Sure, there was that silly post-season game that the NFL champs had played against the AFL champs, but that was just an exhibition game, sort of like the Harlem Globetrotters playing that team that’s paid to lose to them — the AFL’s inferiority was a given, like the firmness of the Earth.
But on that day, God allowed a terrible, unnatural thing to happen. Worse, He allowed it to happen in keeping with the obnoxious bragging of that prophet of Baal Broadway Joe. But the Lord did this to save me from football, a silly game in which altogether too much importance is placed upon a SINGLE GAME. In baseball, you have to show up day after day, and even the best team will inevitably lose a few. It builds character. Football builds depression. Lose one game, and you’re chopped liver. That doesn’t help young folks grow strong and get themselves on Wheaties boxes. Or at least, it shouldn’t.
Anyway, I have not followed the blasted, capricious game since. And, as Stephen Colbert would say, so can you.
Good thing we didn’t have HDTV back in 1969, of course, or I still might not have been able to kick the habit. Of course, thanks to our failure to have a National Health Plan, I don’t have HDTV now, either.
Related Posts
I hate organized, bigtime sports, especially football. All part of the bread and circuses paradigm. Read a book instead.
.”…how do you stop folks from…”
…you people’s blogs? There’s Brad’s and yours and Sic Willie’s and HillBuzz [which I have boycotted] and a couple of rowdy dudes’ over at the “Houston Chronicle.”
Blogging is much harder to cure than football.
You know, I understand Ballentine. Football is brain candy, as is basketball, to me.
I read books, too, so that comment sort of making football fans come across as dense is not fair.
For example, I am reading The History of the Arab Peoples right now, along with book on the Kennedy brothers. I always read two or three books at once.
However, I don’t watch American Idol or reality shows. I have cable tv for football, news and channels like the History Chanel, Discovery, National Geographic, etc.
Brad, what really should scare you is that it won’t be football fans with a brain that decide the next election, but folks who watch reality tv.
brad-
you must really hate the olympics, 1/100th more of a second and there goes snl and frosties. sorry about your football experience though. my ex and i had some bad oysters once at bowens island, but we did go back safely many times so you might want to try again to see if you could enjoy america’s second nastiest contact sport.
what you have to love about football is that the “elitist main stream media” carries some, but the “fair and balanced” network clutters our air waves with some as well.
sadly more americans 18 and over probably will watch 3 to 6 hours of football on november 2-and know all about the players they are watching-than will vote on november 4 and know about those players.
Maybe you were able to go back for more oysters, but can I go back and see Johnny U. win a Super Bowl? I don’t think so.
I’ve even heard a nasty rumor that the Colts aren’t in Baltimore any more.