“What are our footballers doing?” Kiera asked as she pointed down to the group of football players standing on the sidelines. I handed her off to Aaron and let him explain.
It was Friday night and we were attending our first Brownwood Lion football game. As with anything that we do as a family, it was fun.
When we climbed out of the truck, Kiera was bouncing with excitement. As we walked to the football field with Kiera between us, holding our hands, the music began to play announcing the Lions entrance. Picking up on the music cue, Kiera began to pull at our hands, trying to speed us up. “We are going to miss it! Hurry up!” she exclaimed.
Now, let me interject that I grew up in a small school. When you went to a football game, you walked up to the gate, paid and strolled on in. There was hardly ever a line. Because of this, I might have underestimated the length of the line to buy a Brownwood Lion football ticket at the gate.
As we walked to the end of the line, that seemed to go on forever, I had to again assure Kiera that we would not miss the game. For a few minutes, she was fine standing in the line, watching the people around us. Then suddenly, she pulled on my arm. I looked down at her and she motioned for me to kneel down.I knelt down to her level and she whispered in my ear, “Can’t we cut?”
Smiling, I hugged her to me, “No, sweetie. That wouldn’t be very nice. I promise we will get to see the game.”
Finally, after a few more minutes, but an eternity to Kiera, we purchased our tickets and made our way to our seats. As we sat down, Kiera looked around and much to our surprise and delight; we found we were sitting next to Kiera’s teacher. She hugged Kiera and several times throughout the game, Kiera made herself comfortable in her teacher’s lap.
Studying the field, Kiera turned to me and asked, “Which ones are the good guys and which ones are the bad guys?”
I tried to hide my laughter as I pointed out that our team was in the maroon jerseys and the other team was in the white jerseys.
I’ll be honest. I know a little bit about football. Not a lot. Okay… a little bit might be pushing it.
I know about defense, offense, flags on the play, touchdowns, interceptions, quarterbacks… Oh, I also know they have four times to get so far on the field before it is the other teams turn. See? I can be a fount of knowledge on football. Okay. Not really. I’m working on it though.
I do get really wrapped up in sports. Even though, I don’t have a kid on the field, I can still be found yelling random things. Especially the more intense a game gets. At one point, I remember standing on the bleachers, bouncing on the balls of my feet and screaming, “Get him! Get him! Get him!” I remember that moment, because I glanced over at Aaron to see him laughing at me.
A lot of the game went something like this: Something would happen on the field, crowd cheers, I cheer, then I turn to Aaron and say, “What happened?” He explains and we start over. It was a good time.
There were questions that Kiera asked that I could answer. For instance, after our first touchdown, she asked excitedly, “Did we win?”
“Well, we made points,” I explained. “We have to play longer though.”
During the game, the cheerleaders threw footballs into the stands. I had just pointed out the flying footballs to Kiera when I saw a white object hurtling towards us. I reached my hand out in front of Aaron and managed to tip the ball to the people behind us. We had a good laugh that Aaron never even saw it coming and that I probably saved his life. My words…not his.
A few minutes later, the man behind us tapped me on the shoulder and handed the white football to Kiera. It was so sweet and thoughtful of him. She was so excited to have a football. It wasn’t until after half time that she made a connection that none of us had made.
Holding the football in front of my face, she exclaimed, “I’m cheering for the wrong team! I have a white football and the bad team is in white!”
Aaron and I quickly explained that our team was maroon and white. I also threw in that the other team wasn’t bad they just weren’t our team.
It was a great family night. The Lions played hard and I can’t wait to take Kiera to another game.
Who knows… by the end of the season, Kiera and I might have the game down.
Rowonna McNeely is a graphic artist for Willie’s T’s Screenprint & Embroidery. She is a mother of a five-year-old girl and step mother of two adult girls. Her crazy life includes a dog, Sloane and psychotic cat, Gracie. Both females. She is married to her prince, who is outnumbered by the opposite gender.
