It Just Means More
How Football Isn’t Just a Game — It’s a Sacred Ritual
My First Time
I still remember my first time. I was in early elementary school, around Connor’s age. It was a Friday in September, and my sister picked me up from school for a weekend with her and my brother-in-law.
Somewhere between pizza and cartoons, she casually dropped the bomb: “We’ve got three tickets to the OU game tomorrow.”
To me, that wasn’t just exciting. It was holy.
By that point, I was already Sooner born and Sooner bred. Some of my earliest holiday memories weren’t stockings or Easter baskets — they were the Orange Bowl, Miami vs. OU, national titles on the line. OU-Texas at the State Fair wasn’t just a game; it was scripture. I styled my hair like Brian Bosworth, bad dye job and all.
That first game itself? A blowout. OU ran the score up so fast the starters were benched before halftime. But it stuck with me. Like first communion — not thrilling, but sacred.
Friday Night Lights, Oklahoma Edition
By high school, I wasn’t playing football, and I wasn’t in band. But Friday Night Lights was still the air we breathed. My senior year, we won state. In Oklahoma, that’s not just a big deal — it’s mythology.
The games, sure, but what I remember most are the rituals around them:
The homecoming floats built with more duct tape than engineering sense.
The parade through town, everyone waving, everyone included.
The homecoming court crowned under the lights, even when we knew it was a popularity contest.
And the cupcake opponent for the homecoming game, because the night wasn’t about the scoreboard. It was about the bond.
The book Friday Night Lights nailed this. People think it’s about football. It’s not. It’s sociology. It’s west Texas in the oil bust, an ethnography in pads and helmets. Growing up in Oklahoma in the 80s and 90s, I lived that world. Football wasn’t the subject; it was the stage where a community remembered itself.
College: Bad Football, Sacred Ritual
Then came college at Baylor. Let’s be honest: Baylor football back then was awful. Not mediocre. Awful.
And yet… we went. We gathered. The band played. The cheerleaders jumped. The homecoming bonfire roared. Even with a garbage team, the ritual bound us.
Through my twenties, I kept going. Football wasn’t just games; it was glue. It brought us together after jobs pulled us apart.
And then something miraculous happened: Baylor started winning.
I still remember my wedding to Dorene. The DJ gave score updates for Baylor vs. Texas A&M between songs. The next year, Robert Griffin III — RG3 — lit the world on fire. I even bet Dorene that if he won the Heisman, we’d name our son Griffin. He did. She bailed. (Connor is a great name, but you can’t tell me Griffin wouldn’t have grown up with grit baked into his DNA.)
Still, Connor’s first football outfit was a Baylor jersey. He knows daddy screams at the TV when Baylor plays. One day he looked at me mid-rant and said, “What did the poor TV do to YOU?”
He doesn’t know yet. But he will.
The League: Our National Church
College football is tribal. Pro football is national.
You don’t need to explain “the league.” Everyone knows what you mean. The NFL is our American Church. College has rituals; the NFL has a holy day: Sunday.
The holy of holies isn’t a pulpit — it’s QB1. The Pope is your coach.
And in my lifetime, the most terrifying Pope-and-priest combo was Tom Brady and Bill Belichick. In our house, they were the Antichrist. Dorene’s from Indy. Peyton Manning and Tony Dungy were gospel. Brady and Belichick were the dark side.
I’ve been lucky enough to experience the Super Bowl in person — media center, NFL House, all-access everything. The game we saw? Brady and Belichick’s last Super Bowl win together. The game itself? Boring as hell. But standing there, shoulder to shoulder with tens of thousands, time warped. The halftime show (Maroon 5) sucked. Didn’t matter. The energy was electric.
You don’t sit in a stadium like that. You don’t observe. You dissolve. You are not an individual anymore. You are the crowd. And the crowd has one purpose: kill the fucking enemy.
Even watching from home now, I scream at the TV like I’m there. Because I am there. The crowd doesn’t just live in the stadium. It lives in me.
The Politics of Touching Grass
This is where the elites — left and right — just don’t get it.
The left wants to sterilize the game. Make it safe. De-risk it. Wrap it in bubble wrap and lecture us about “toxic masculinity.” I get it. Football is violent. But that’s the point. People want risk. They want real stakes. Strip that away and you strip the soul out too.
When I was in fifth grade, I got in a fight at lunch. My teacher was the football coach. That afternoon, he had me and the kid settle it with an Oklahoma drill. Two boys, circled by teammates, crashing into each other until one got shoved out. We puked. Then we became best friends. Was it safe? No. Was it dumb? Maybe. Did it work? Absolutely.
The right isn’t better. MAGA somehow turned Travis Kelce dating Taylor Swift into proof of moral decline. Are you kidding me? The hot blonde pop star and the big hunky football player — that’s the most American love story since apple pie and hot dogs. If you hate that, you hate us.
Both sides try to inject politics. Both sides miss the point. The field isn’t about politics. It’s about something deeper.
Football Is Ritual, Not Entertainment
Kickoff. Anthem. Chants. Fight songs. The line of scrimmage. The beer in your hand. The wings on the table. The hug with a stranger after an upset.
This isn’t just entertainment. This is ritual.
For men especially, football is one of the last socially acceptable ways to feel. To scream. To cry. To show devotion. Watch Rudy without tearing up. You can’t. Hugging a stranger at a game feels more real than most workplace friendships.
That’s not toxic. That’s sacred.
And it’s not new. Ancient cultures knew this. Greeks had the Olympics. Romans built coliseums bigger than temples. Japan has sumo alongside tea ceremonies. Sport wasn’t just play. It was observation, communion, catharsis.
The sacred buildings of every age weren’t just churches. They were stadiums.
The Two-Minute Drill
Football is not “just a game.”
It’s one of the last ways we gather as a people. It’s one of the last ways we touch something primal, something bigger, something holy.
And here’s the quiet part: the so-called elites sneer at it because it’s “of the masses.” But that’s the tell. They’re the ones who don’t get it.
What they dismiss as primitive is sacred. What they call “toxic” is humanity.
The stadium isn’t a distraction from life. It’s one of the last places we live it fully.
That’s why it just means more.
—David