Top 6 reasons why football is the "Greatest Team Game In the World."

Top 6 reasons why Football is the "Greatest Team Game In the World." I was lucky enough to coach FB at North Dakota State University early in my educational career. Leo Ringey, at the time a full-time assistant coach and part time philosopher, often said that football was, "the greatest team game in the world, and  if you have to ask why, you don't understand the game or the experience."

I recently finished coaching sophomore FB at Maple Grove Senior High. We ended our their season last week with a 7-3 victory over Champlin Park. As a result of this game/season and my long experience with the game, here is this observer's Top 6 reasons why football holds that lofty description.
 1. The experience can't be recreated. You can always continue to play other sports. Baseball, basketball, and other sports can be replicated long into your adult life. Football has a finite shelf life. There aren't many over 40 football leagues listed in the community ed offerings. The rituals of putting on the equipment, going through the routine to get ready to play, and the 5 minutes before kickoff are only a few unique moments specific to this game.
 2. There are so many things you can't control. Players don't get to transfer the blame, because it takes you away from your focus on the matter at hand. The ball is wet, the officials were bad, the field was sloppy, the coaches called the wrong plays...lots of wasted effort. The easiest thing to do sometimes is to feel sorry for yourself.  When you are an adult and get the rejection letter or phone call after the interview, it doesn't do any good to transfer the blame to someone else. The game teaches you to suck it up and get better.
 3. Pay attention to details. This game more than any, requires the simplest details to be combined with strength, speed, athletic ability, footwork, and fundamental elements of football related skills. The team who plays the game better will often win. You get beat because the other team played the game better than you did. Football is divided into 6 second chunks, the length of an average play. If a player's first step is in the wrong direction, he is already at a disadvantage for those six seconds. Also, there are items fundamental to this grand life that include, but are not limited to, simple skills with long range impacts. Incorrectly spell the name of a potential client in a letter, and you might not get that account. Show up late to meetings on a consistent basis and you may become a former employee.
 4. Coach-ability is more important than ability. Players that are willing to listen, and be coached have a much greater chance to be successful. While this is true about every sport, it might include the guy across the line of scrimmage who is kicking you on every play. Every team is filled with players who have great abliity, but don't get better. Eye contact, the key to communication, speaks volumes. Darby Carlson, one of the most successful coaches in the state, says, "if I can't communicate with you, I can't coach you, and if I can't coach you, then we have an issue.  Students in our schools are going to have to learn new skills as they change jobs and professions and had better be coachable.

 5. It wasn't intended to be easy.
 In our last game, we played poorly in the first half. We played better in the second half, got in a rhythm on offense and had one scoring drive. That is all we needed. At the same time, the defense didn't point fingers or blame their teammates, but concentrated on their job and encouraged the offense. The adult life is filled with examples of delayed gratification in which the reward might be a lot further away the 45 minutes. You just have to keep grinding. There are very few choices other than to figure it out and get after it.

 6. Football and Life are a Series of Plan B's.
 You never know when your chance will come. Teams are filled with stories about players who might have been on the second or third team, but didn't quit and stayed with the game. For a myriad of reasons, they might find themselves having to step in an be a starter. If they had quit, that chance would be gone. That chance might be at the end of the season on the last drive of a tie game.

Finally, if you don't think the game means something to those that play it, check in with a senior who has played in his last game.