Football Terms and The Spin Cycle

The week following the Super Bowl finds us Spinners doing our take on football.  Oh, my!  Having grown up in rural Texas one would find your way to a game by looking for the lights of the football stadium.  Those lights and the town's water tower were usually the highest thing for miles.  I remember riding the bus dressed in my drill team uniform watching the lights approach.  As a teen on Friday night, the highlight was being able to walk your boyfriend off the field at the end of the game.  Second best thing was wearing his letter jacket. I

did both for one season.  Lost out the next year due to an interception by a rival team.

For years Sunday afternoons were spent in my Mom's home watching football.  That tiny living room would be filled with sisters, BIL's, aunts, cousins, nieces, nephews and eventually a husband.  There were days spent installing Cowboy antennas to receive the Ardmore station so the home games could be watched.  We watched for youngest sister to appear at halftime when the Tyler Apache Belles performed at the Cowboy games.

My Aunt Billie worked for the Murchison's when the Cowboys were started.  I mean Aunt Billie was the executive secretary/personal assistant for Mr. Pickens, a 'big wig' in the Murchison organization.  Clint Jr. started the Cowboy organization in 1960.  Aunt Billie put Cowboy stickers on her car as well as my folks car.  Aunt Billie actually attended the games!  She had breathed the same air as Dandy Don!  She and her late husband, A. G., were present in Green Bay, WI, for the Ice Bowl game Dec. 31, 1967.   She remembers being so very cold.  Aunt Billie could not believe a lady had an icicle hanging from her nose! That sort of foul would never be committed by a Southern Lady.  Then she looked at herself in a mirror.  She had a snotcicle, too.  Benched for the remainder of the season for un-Southern Lady conduct.

But this post is not supposed to be about how I grew up living, breathing and doing all things football.  Or maybe it is.  It is just that for this Texas country gal football was The Big Thing.  I did grow weary of all the hype over a bunch of guys beating the daylights out of each other.  And making more money for 'playing football' a couple of years than a teacher makes in a lifetime.  My son so loved/loves the game.  He begged to play Mighty Mites.  I would not allow it.  He said I ruined his life.  I was penalized for dream interference.  He did play junior high and high school ball. Now he says he was not built for football.  His size called for an option of either cross country runner or soccer.  Guess he is being a Monday Morning quarterback on how I reared him!

When I started this post my game plan was to use a series of pictures illustrating terms of United States football.  With readers all over the world (two outside the US) not all understand the terminology for our football game.

Terms like:
 

Face Mask 15 yd. penalty

Down and Out.  Extra 15 yards.

Hail Mary, when you make a pass and pray to score.

Hope I have not fumbled the pass from Ginny and Gretchen this week.  For more football fun, call a time out and dash to the sidelines for a The Spin Cycle!

Not so tight end.  Forfeit of game.