my name is keisha brown, and i am a NFL-a-holic.
well…maybe not a-holic..but close enough.
wait – aren’t you Canadian? how do you fall in love with a league that’s not even in your country?
take a walk with me.
my dad was a Pittsburgh Steelers fan (during the steel curtain era). my mom somehow became a Dallas Cowboys fan (back in the 70′s…how this went down in the house on a sunday is beyond me).
the moment i remember the most, was as a young girl wanting to watch some cartoons on a sunday afternoon. my little brother was hogging the tv. my mom said simply to me:
if you want to be a part of this family, you’ll have to learn to love football.
my face probably looked a little something like this:
so i sat there, begrudgingly watching the Buffalo Bills (i live in Toronto). i grew up cheering for the Cowboys (they won and they were my mom’s team), but it wasn’t until an electrifying player named Randall Cunningham (who looked eerily like my little brother), that i found my own and grew to love every aspect of the sport. from the all-important pre-games to witty post-game shows and everything in between.
and while the rules in our family state you can have both an NFC and AFC team (doubling your chances of getting to the Superbowl), and i was a Titans fan for a few years, i am predominantly an Eagles fan.
my first jersey...not my last!
as i got older, i was never one to exploit being a lady fan, but it was always something i had to prove. the fellas would always look at me very sceptically when i told them NOT to call my house during ESPN’s Primetime. (they also learned the hard way what would happen if they did).
these days, being a female football fan is nothing really special. 40% of the fan base of the NFL is composed of the curvier gender. there are a multitude of blogs run by very knowledgeable (and hot!) ladies.
back in 2004…not so much.
to leave a comment on an article on ESPN.com, you had to become a member. there weren’t a lot of people leaving comments, so you started to see the same people and were able to connect with them (think Google+). one reader inspired me to start writing blog entries on NBA playoffs and other random thoughts about sports.
it was lots of fun, and gave me the blogging bug. especially when the monitors of the site commented and re-blogged my posts! i felt like a celebrity!!! as the site developed into the sports version of Facebook (walls, pictures, posts etc..), i faded off with my writings, but not with my love of the sport.
why football and why not basketball?
while the NBA on NBC was a staple in my household growing up, NFL was king. how i like to put it – I’ll flirt with the NBA (especially during playoffs), but I’m in a monogamous relationship with the NFL.
last summer, one of my fave blogs (that pretty much got me back into the blog world) posted “5 Reasons Why the NBA is Better Than The NFL”. it was likely based on personal preference more than anything, but it was great to see so many people, both men and women completely and respectfully disagree. including myself of course. as i wrote back then:
savvy smartphone users are now broken into 2 major camps: blackberry and iphone. iphone users berate bb users for its lack of apps and sleekness, bb users look down their nose and point to the most powerful man in the world has one. you know what? we are ALL suckers making Apple and RIM richer, both devices have pros and cons and it boils down to personal taste and how trendy you need to be with your electronic devices.
this is pretty much the same thing…
…im a blackberry user, and i can name great things about the iphone. but if someone gave me a new white blackberry bold and a new iphone 4..i’d pick bb every time. and i’ll pick nfl every time too.
i still stand by that statement. (except Apple is on iphone17 by now i think). i wont even mention fantasy football, football pools (which i have run for 4 years), EA Sports Madden games or just having a day associated with your sport.
i will say, i am personally opposed to the pink jerseys and love the sport for more than just the eye candy. yes. seriously. (although eye candy was a vital part of the 1st annual NFL ladies summit i hosted last year)
nothing wrong with a little extra incentive
so on the eve, of the regular season of the best league on the continent, i have my popcorn, NFL snacks, pillow for THE NFL nap, laptop (twitter makes watching everything better!) and jersey pressed and READY.
i am so ready for some football!
kbe
