Football has been around for a very long time and there is a reason for that. It has been one of my favorite pastimes for the past ten years of my life, and when I say that I mean it to be more of an addiction than anything.
I got into football when I was 12 years old. My mom had mentioned she would be going to San Francisco to see a game, and at the time, all I saw was a vacation. She refused to bring me along because I did not care about the sport at the time.
Afterwards, it suddenly felt like a challenge to learn everything and anything that I could about the sport in order to understand why everyone around me was so obsessed with it. However, the more I understood about football, the more I began to fall in love with it.
I like to call it my first love, but first loves can be as rewarding as they are frustrating.
Even with that admission, there is nothing that could make me give it up. Football is such a complicated sport, the number of possibilities that can transpire in a 60-minute game is overwhelmingly amazing.
I love the game so much that it has inspired my choice of career. I spent two years as sports editor in high school, four years covering local high school sports and a year as sports editor at The Prospector.
I have covered a lot of different sports, but not one competes with my love for football, and that includes basketball.
Basketball can be intense and is an incredible sport, but it does not quite give the rush that football does. Basketball is fun for Christmas and when it comes to the playoffs, but when I really compare the two, there is no competition.
Everyone is tuned in every week for football, even if it means skipping church or other commitments. The Super Bowl gets more viewership than the NBA Finals, and that is with the NBA Finals spanning several games.
Football is iconic, even at the high school level. “Friday Night Lights” is a phrase coined by the idea of the competitive battlefield that Texas high school football is. And at the college level, it is more intense as teams battle to play in a bowl game.
The only time you see basketball compete with football in terms of viewership is when March Madness rolls around or it is time for playoffs. But with football, it is a never-ending obsession, even when in the off-season. Basketball is a lot of the same, running up and down the court in a non-stop motion. Some could argue that football is the same, but what they do not see are the defenders taking the time to read offenses and force turnovers.
They do not see the coaches on the sidelines dialing up flea-flicker plays or fake punts. Everything that you think is going to happen in a play can change in the blink of an eye when it comes to football.
Everyone has their sport that they love. Mine just happens to be football, aka America’s favorite pastime.
Emily Autumn Velasquez is editor-in-chief and may be reached at eavelasquez.miners.utep.edu; @byemilyautumn on Instagram; @emilyautumn20 on Twitter.