We can’t resist recounting an extremely memorable personal anecdote from many years back, with football as the background theme. Since we’ve told it on several occasions to fellow grid game lovers, the readers are kindly asked to accept our humble apology wherever overkill has resulted.
The setting is Los Angeles, with the writer being on a business visit to a local client’s premises. One of the company’s executives dropped by on a midweek afternoon to indicate that he had an extra ticket for a game that night at the Coliseum. The New York Giants had come to town to face the Rams in a pre-season exhibition match.
“Would you care to see it?”, asked the gentleman, whose name happened to be Floyd.
After a leap in the air and a double heel click, the answer was a most enthusiastic “Yep!”
“Fine then,” continued Floyd. “We’ll leave work around five PM, meet my wife for dinner, and afterwards all head to the game together.”
Suddenly a dull thud sensation could be felt in the pit of the stomach. “Oh, Lord,” came the unspoken reaction to the man’s statement. “He’s going to a football game and bringing his wife along. What a ridiculous move!”
Immediate nightmarish thoughts came to mind, due to the prospect of spending some three grandstand hours listening to a female’s endless dumb questions, such as “Why is the whole crowd cheering, Floyd? Did somebody hit a home run?”
Anyway, the countdown toward our five o’clock departure and subsequent rendezvous promptly began. In due course, we found Mrs. F already waiting for us at a spiffy restaurant. After attending to the introduction, hubby excused himself to make a phone call, leaving the two of us seated side-by-side in a plushly upholstered dining booth.
Our acquaintance began with a minute or two of utterly useless small talk, before Floyd’s better half looked up and calmly asked “What do you think of Billy Wade?”, referring to the Rams’ incumbent quarterback.
“Oh, I never cared much for his playing,” was the relatively disinterested response.
She readily carried on, a bit more emphatically this time, “Well, maybe not, but he’s running out of the pocket better than he did last season.”
With these words, a bolt of lightning crackled over this fellow’s head. “Good God,” was the silent but resounding reaction. “The lady speaks fluent football!”
From that point onward, the evening proved to be exceedingly pleasant. Upon arrival at the Coliseum, Floyd’s wife sat in the middle, and the two of us jointly proceeded to plan play-by-play strategy for the home-town Rams. Our accomplishments amounted to little, however, since the Giants gave them a pretty thorough licking.
That was the first and only occasion for meeting Floyd’s unexpectedly grid-cognizant wife, because that initial visit found all needed business matters fully resolved. Still, the entire affair remains a vivid memory. A hitherto disdain for female admittance into hallowed football circles had been irrevocably nullified.
Since that momentous event so long ago, some highly significant evolutionary changes have been effected where the fair sex is concerned. Nowadays, the act of witnessing a National Football League game would prove extremely disappointing if the broadcast failed to feature a most knowledgeable young lady or two down on the playing field, offering meaningful on-the-spot commentary from start to final whistle.
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