America

America: land of the free, home of the brave. Named after Amerigo Vespucci, an Italian merchant and cartographer who explored large parts of what is now South America, this country historically always had an enormous attraction on immigrants. Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, The wretched refuse of your teeming shore. Send these homeless, tempest- tost to me, I lift my lamp beside the golden door. This famous part of a poem written on a plaque on the inner wall of the pedestal of the Statue of Liberty sums up perfectly what the United States is all about.

It doesn’t matter who you are and where you’re from, Lady Liberty welcomes you.

I love America. Even with its faults, it still has an enormous attraction on me. I love everything about America; its wide-open spaces, its “can do” attitude and its never dying believe in the American dream.

But there is one thing I love the most about America; American Football

Football, as it’s known in the United States, has its origins in a sport that Americans call soccer. But, like Rugby, most plays in American Football involve throwing the ball rather than moving the ball across the field by foot.

In all fairness, to a first time spectator, the game of football would most likely make very little sense. Heavily padded guys, running around on the field, trying to hit their opponents. “Football is war!” Rinus Michels, a famous Dutch soccer coach once said. This is even more so true for American Football. Two teams, trying to beat each other, to advance across the field. With the head coaches standing on the sideline, shouting plays to their men. Trying to get to the “end zone” of their adversary. Using not only physical strength, but also strategy. Football is more like chess than you would think.

The first game of Football was played by two college teams. Rutgers University and Princeton University played each other on November 6, 1869. Rutgers won this game by a score of six to four. This game, however, was still played by the English Football Association rules, which meant that players were only allowed to kick the ball and each side had twenty- five players. Almost six years later; in 1875, Harvard University and Tufts University played a game of Football that had more recognizable aspects of modern day Football, like; having eleven players per side on the field, picking up the ball, and running with it and stopping the ball carrier by tackling him. Players, however, had virtually no protection and serious injury’s and even deaths were not uncommon. In 1905 alone, eighteen players died as a result of playing Football. This led to several important colleges banning Football as a sport. In 1910 reforms led to the creation of the National Collegiate Athletic Association or NCAA for short. To this day still, the NCAA is the main governing body for all collegiate sports events. On a professional level there were two conferences. The American Professional Football Association was founded in 1920 at a car dealership in Ohio. The American Football League (AFL) started in 1960 by a team owner whose team was refused entry to the existing league. The two conferences merged into the National Football League (NFL) in 1966.

In its present form American Football knows eleven players on the field per side. A game is divided in four quarters, each fifteen minutes long. These fifteen minutes are pure playing time. That means that those fifteen minutes of playing time take about forty-five minutes to an hour. So a full game takes between three and four hours. To ensure the safety of the players on the field, five referees oversee every move, throwing their yellow flags when penalties occur. These rules and regulations are updated each year to make sure that the restrictions develop alongside the game. There are 112 1-A (The highest division in the NCAA) college football programs divided over twelve conferences and 32 professional teams in the NFL. College Football and professional football have slightly different rules, but I won’t go into too much detail.

Every Sunday in the fall, football games are played. This brings with it an American phenomenon: tailgating.

Football is a family sport. Whole families go to games. When you go to a game, it’s a full day event. Of course during the day you get hungry, so what do you do? Americans drive their SUVs (Sports Utility Vehicles) to the parking lot of the Football Stadium where the game is played. Then they open up the backdoors of their cars (the “Tailgate”) and they start getting out lawn chairs, barbeques, food, drinks and sometimes even TV- sets to watch coverage of the early games played. Tailgating has evolved into something more than just eating and or drinking before a football game. It has become a social gathering for like- minded individuals. There is a real “tailgating community”.

Football is also a big part of college life. There are three professional football teams (NFL) in the state of Florida. The Miami Dolphins, The Tampa Bay Buccaneers and the Jacksonville Jaguars.