It’s always 1st and 10 in Texas

In Texas football is a religion. There are many denominations ranging from Pop Warner to the Pros but during the liturgical calendar, which runs roughly from September to January, all true Texans are expected to attend weekend services, either physically or via television. Failure to do so can result in shunning, shaming, or being labeled a weak-kneed closet commie.

If you are a football player or a coach, you are considered clergy with license to sermonize or pontificate on the sport. If you are a True Believer, you may make occasional pilgrimages to meccas such as Dallas (Cowboys) or Houston (Oilers) where gridiron rites are staged at the most sacred levels. But most work-boot and trucker-cap Texas religionists worship at high school or college services which include sacraments such as beer and barbecue.

Prominent on the Texas Church of Football calendar are high holy days such as Homecoming games, state championship contests, and traditional rivalries such as the annual Red River Shootout between the UT Longhorns and the OU Sooners. Of late, that contest between good (Longhorns) and evil (Sooners) suffered an attack by wokesters who feared the frightening image of gunplay might send some fans to the fainting couches and renamed the long-revered rite. The Red River Rivalry didn’t sit well with the traditionalists, particularly those in Norman, Oklahoma who blamed the name change for their brutal drubbing (34-3) at the Cotton Bowl cathedral in Dallas. At the end of this year’s services, a Sooner buddy of mine called and quoted the venerable Texas Tech coach Spike Dykes in observing that the Longhorns “whipped us like a tied-up goat.” Dykes, who died in 2017, is widely regarded in Church of Football circles as the Yogi Berra of the sport.

Unfortunately, the goat was on the other end of the tether the following weekend when a gang of heretics from Georgia descended on Austin and brought the faithful to their knees by a lopsided score of 30-15. That prompted a Texas coach to unearth another Dykes gem when he opined that “we played about like three tons of buzzard puke this afternoon.” A good Spike Dykes quote covers a multitude of situations and sins.

There are, of course, schisms in the Texas Church of Football. The most controversial is promoted by soccer fans who—as every true Texan knows—are either limp-wristed weenies or damn Yankees. Having researched this a bit, I’m prone to blame over-protective helicopter Moms and immigrants from countries where running around half-naked and kicking at a ball that players are not allowed to touch is somehow considered a reputable sport. If travel takes you overseas, you’ll quickly discover that what they call football is really soccer played by guys with names you can’t pronounce and a lot less bloodshed.

In a London pub several years ago, some Brit friends were watching TV and trying to explain the game of cricket to me. It involved a bunch of guys in white flannel swinging what looked like a sort of canoe paddle at a ball in an effort to keep it from knocking over a bunch of sticks. The pitcher was allowed to run a couple of steps before he launched the ball at the sticks in a motion that reminded me of berserker on a hand-grenade range. That was called bowling by cricketeers. When I objected that bowling was done in an alley with a bigger ball delivered underhand at tenpins and players drank beer rather than tea, they switched channels.

As the new channel appeared, some guy was sliding on his knees and tearing off his jersey in front of a net the size of a respectable garden shed. Crowds roared in the background so it appeared to be some type of sporting competition. “What’s this?” I inquired as players mobbed the shirtless guy.

“Football.” One of the Brits wanted to switch back to the cricket game. “Very popular here.”

“It might be popular,” I conceded as I ordered another pint of Exmoor Beast. “But it ain’t football.”

The resulting discussion became heated quickly and threatened the very fiber of a long-standing Anglo-American alliance. I zipped it and whispered a quiet prayer to St. Vincent (Lombardi) for deliverance. Incidents like that and many others led me to the Church of American Football, Central Texas synod. It wasn’t a tough novitiate. In high school I’d been a middling wide receiver on a team that didn’t pass much, but it was never about me. It was about my team. And win or lose, there were huge life lessons in that experience.

Maybe that’s why those of us who watch the game religiously do so every season. Sure, there’s the Walter Mitty aspect of secretly imagining we are that whippet running back who goes all the way for a winning TD, but there are more important aspects to this great American game. It’s a game that teaches sacrifice, courage, and competitiveness, all good assets on or off a playing field. It’s about brotherhood (and sisterhood). Football demands trusting teammates. It involves risk, often putting your personal safety in the hands of others so the team can succeed. In many ways, particularly at the high school and college levels, football shines the spotlight on things like love, family, and loyalty—concepts that are too often disparaged today.

The sermon is ended. Go in peace. And hook ’em horns.

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