Pauline Nevins

I learned the finer points of American football decades ago in the cramped space of a South Sacramento apartment complex known as “Sin city” – unmarried tenants allowed.

My boyfriend, Jim, rolled several pairs of his thick socks into a ball – bent over – directed me and my two young children, recent arrivals from England, to stand behind him. He flipped the sock ball between his legs. That’s called a hike, he said.

Over the years, I’ve watched football with now-husband Jim, more often back in the San Francisco 49ers’ golden years when Joe Montana was quarterback and Jerry Rice the wide receiver. My husband is also a Green Bay Packers fan, mostly out of solidarity with his ex-Air Force buddy Ed, who lives in Indiana.

The recent game at Lambeau Field between the Packers and 49ers presented a dilemma: I’d quickly lose interest in American football, familiar as I was with the constant movement in British football. American players spend too much time standing around, or bent over, I’d complain.

Recently, I’ve focused on other aspects of the game. I notice and appreciate when players create a path for other players to score. I praise the clean tackles that go for the legs and trip up the runner. Reminds me of the lion who leaps forward and takes down his prey with his two front paws.

I critique some plays. Why would the quarterback pass the ball to a player whose only opening is into a wall of muscle? I protest out loud when a player knocks a caught football out of the hands of another. And by the way, do they have to hit each other so hard? I cover my eyes on those replays.

My husband wanted to play football in high school – players got all the cute girls. His parents nixed that, fearful he’d get hurt. So Jim spent his teenage years driving a 1966 Chevelle Super Sport, testing how fast the 396 could go.

He spent four years in the Air Force working inside the fuel tanks of B-52 bombers and F-4 fighter jets. The instructor, Jim told me, reminded new recruits – and this is almost a quote – You guys that have the habit of scratching your bottoms (I said almost a quote) had better break it quick. You’ll be inside a tank just emptied of JP-4 fuel. One spark and there’ll be no bottom to scratch and no arm to scratch it with.

That’s the talk the character in a movie I just watched would appreciate. Jeff Bridges, one of my favorite actors, portrayed a sardonic Texas Ranger in the film Hell or High Water. Lolling on a seedy hotel bed, flipping through TV channels while waiting for the bad guys, he paused on a British football game. Soccer, Bridges says to his Texas Ranger partner, never understood that – anything a 5-year-old can do isn’t a sport. Who invented it?

Well, Mr. Bridges, the British did, around the Middle Ages. This according to Uri Friedman in a June 13, 2014, online article in The Atlantic.

Friedman’s quoting from a published paper by Stefan Szymanski, a sports economist at the University of Michigan. Szymanski wrote that in 1863, leaders of a dozen clubs met in London and formed a Football Association – later named Association Football. In 1871, another group of clubs met to create a version of the game where you could use your hands, which became known as Rugby Football.

Writes Szymanski, “The rugby football game was shorted to ‘rugger,’ and the association football was shortened to ‘soccer.” For decades, the British used the term ‘soccer football.’ It was only in the 1980s the British stopped using the term. The Yanks had taken it over to differentiate it from American football, as soccer became more popular over here.

But it hasn’t been a one-way trip across the Atlantic. American football has become hugely popular in England, where the NFL has competed in sold-out games in London’s Wembley Stadium.

It didn’t surprise me the British embraced the sport. I’m convinced that now that Great Britain has ditched the European Union, next stop – the 51st state.

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