With summer approaching its very end, I feel that it is appropriate to say that fall is just around the corner. Before we know it, the leaves will be turning the crisp orangish-brown color and sweaters will be back in style like it disappeared. While many of you may think of Halloween, Thanksgiving, sweaters, and other traditional fall things, there is one thing that always preoccupies my mind the most during fall. That one thing, if you can’t guess by the title, is football. With the NFL and Collegiate football starting back up again, I’m riveting at the opportunity to watch live football again after the short (but very long) offseason.

As a devoted Vikings Fan and student of St. Thomas, I’m eager to watch my favorite teams’ battle for the opportunity to play in a Super Bowl or National Championship game. While the Minnesota Vikings don’t have a great track record with the Super Bowl (0-4 in all Super Bowl games), I always clamber back to my television screen each season to see if this year is going to be our years . I’ve had this phenomena happen to me ever since I was a little boy, and it continues to happen to me as a full-grown adult. I grew up playing football, watching football, and living football. While I am one in millions of American who have and continue to do this, it makes me wonder about why I got into football in the first place.

Why waste the countless hours/days of watching and playing football when there are plenty of other important things to do in this world? The answer, which I plan to explore following the rest of this article, has to do with the culture I grew up with, along with my personal choices I made as a child, adolescent, and adult. While I am no longer a football player and I am a fan if anything, there is a part of me that wonders why I spent the time I did in the sport. There certainly were negatives when it came to the competitiveness of football and it wasn’t all fun and games, in the end though, I pursued football as far as my ability would take me, and have found that I have no regrets when it came to choosing football over other sports. I hope that you, as the reader, has been affected by football in some positive way, and might related to how I feel in love with a sport that was created by college students back in the late 1800’s and is now referred to as “America’s Game”.

Growing up, I was already heavily influenced by football from the very beginning. My father played football when he was in high school as well as his father, and my uncle and other relatives played football when they were in high school as well. All of the however, watch football almost religiously, and I was taught football at a very young age. While I was encouraged by my parents to pursue any sport or activity I desired,, I knew I wanted to play football. I started playing football when I was in 3^rd grade, which was the youngest age I could start playing football at. When I first started playing, I was an offensive linemen for the most post. I was considered to be tall and big for my age when I was in 3^rd grade.

I also wasn’t very good at throwing or kicking the ball and I wasn’t very fast, so playing offensive and defensive line were the ideal positions for myself. I remember that the first year of football was a very tough year for me, as I had little understanding of how to actually play football on a team. I did however, enjoy the physicality of the sport and learned more about the rules of the sport in the process. I did however, decided not to play football during the fall of my 4^th grade year, which was the only year I did not play football from 3^rd grade to 12^th grade. Throughout middle and high school, I would move positions from offensive line to linebacker, with middle linebacker being my main position during my senior year.

While I was considered a big kid when I was younger, I would go on to actually be one of the smaller players on my high school football at 5’8’’ and 170 Ib. When I was growing up, I also watched a lot of football with my dad and other male members of the family, as it was our way of bonding with one another. During this time, I developed a deep passion for the Minnesota Vikings, as I grew up in a suburb of St. Paul. I went to several Minnesota Vikings when I was a kid with my dad and I watched them every season since I can remember. Through watching and playing football, I found a life long passion to pursue. This is one of the many reasons that football is one of the biggest influences in my life, and how it changed me throughout my life.

Out of all the reasons that football was a big influence in my life, the main reason football is one of the biggest influence in my life has to do with the concepts that football teach. As a sport, football is known for teaching discipline, perseverance, teamwork, and self-respect. As a football player, it is important that you listen to your coaches and execute your assignment whether it’s on offense or defense as it can affect the rest of your team. The difference between winning and losing a game can come down to one person who failed to do their assignment, as one play can be winning touchdown or the interception that stopped the potential game-winning drive.

Football requires a lot of physical and mentality strength due to the sheer brutality of the sport, and game play wise is more complicated than it appears. I found that the challenge and discipline required to play the sport plus the life lessons that come with being an athlete made it the perfect combination for someone who wanted to be hard-working adult. This is why football has become such a phenomena in my life, and why football will continue to play a role in my life during each fall.