Most of us probably have a few “favorite moments or days” in our lives. Weddings come to mind, the birth of children, for those of us in the magickal community it might be the anniversary of when we first embraced Paganism or Witchcraft, or perhaps it was when we were initiated or elevated in a tradition. Work accomplishments are nothing to scoff at either, this includes education too. An advanced degree is certainly something to proud of, and in my case I remember how exciting it was when I held my first professionally published book in my hands.
All of the things mentioned here are among my favorite moments in life, but for me there’s another one: sports. After my Gardnerian initiation the second best day of my life was watching my Pittsburgh Steelers win Super 40 in Detroit. (Getting married is number three.) I know how awful that sounds, but Ari was a part of my initiation, and I remember vividly the first phonecall I made when the Steelers won the game that took them to the Super Bowl, it was to Ari. I remember it so vividly because our marriage was rocky at the time, and yet she was still the first person I called and screamed and cried at while on the phone.
Football fandom often feels lonely in Pagandom, but perhaps less so than I sometimes make it out to be. I asked people on my Facebook page today if there were any other Pagan football fans out there other than me, John Beckett, and my friends Adam and Toad, and apparently there were! Like lots of them. Part of my question about football included WHY people watched the game, and in some ways those whys were very similar to many of the things we experience in Paganism and Witchcraft.
I’ve always believed that the purpose of ritual is to connect us to something greater than ourselves, and apparently people see football as a source of connection too. The number one reason people gave me for watching football was that it served to connect them with their community and/or family. Patti Wigington mentioned how Ohio State football connects Columbus, and how everyone in the area knows someone on the team. My friend Toad mentioned watching the STEELERS with his dad and grandfather while growing up, and how his first Terrible Towel came from his grand-dad. John Beckett called the Tennessee Volunteers football team his “childhood heroes” and I couldn’t help but think of how such memories connect us to our childhood.
Football has always been a way for me to connect with my family. When I find my little brother insufferable we can always talk about the NFL (National Football League) and how the Big 10 is getting screwed in college football. My father voted for Trump in 2016 which makes conversations difficult right now, but we can still talk about football and share our excitement when Michigan State pulls off a huge upset. Many of my earliest childhood memories are of football games on the TV in my grandparents living room and going with my Grandma to see the Fighting Illini of Illinois play on Saturday afternoons.
My wife and I were married at Michigan State University (met there too!) which is one of the reasons I love Michigan State Football so much. It connects me to MSU in a very immediate way, and that’s hard to do living 2000 miles away from it. By extension Spartan football also connects me to the people I left behind in Michigan when Ari and I moved out here in 2011 (the day after the Steelers lost to the Packers in the Super Bowl that year, I tell time by football.) Watching Tennessee Volunteers football connects me to my high school years outside of Nashville, and I watch the Stanford Cardinal (there’s no plural there) to connect me to where I live now and the place where my wife is employed.
One of my favorite responses was from Maggie Davis who mentioned “Focused collective energy!” and her love for the Detroit Lions. I think magick and energy are things that we also connect with, and if you’ve ever watched a football game in a stadium, a passionate sports bar, or even with some diehard fans on a couch you’ve felt the energy that gets raised by both participants and spectators (and I’d argue that a lot of us are “active” even if that activity doesn’t involve playing the game).
Football is also strategic, so there were people who mentioned enjoying football for that side of the game. Morgan Daimler mentioned just enjoying the game and the unpredictable nature of it: “I enjoy the sport and find the pace is perfect, neither too slow and therefore boring nor too fast and therefore hard to follow. I like that you never really know how a game is going to go and a great team can have a bad day or a bad team can have a great day.”
It was heartening to hear from other football fans and see that their reasons for watching were much like my own. Of course football is also problematic and my enjoyment of it has been lessened because we know what it does to brains these days, and many in the sport seem to have very little concern for women (cough cough Urban Meyer at Ohio State). I cancelled my NFL Sunday Ticket package this year over disgust at the owners attempting to make it a rule that all NFL Players stand for the anthem. Disgusting. But I’ll also admit the sport is like heroin and while the NFL will be taking less of my money this year I’ll continue to watch (in large part because I want to support the players). These issues are tough, and I can see a point in my life without football, but I’m not there yet.
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