For four quarters, football is the Great American Novel, with chapters from Frank Merriwell, the Bible, Horatio Alger, the life of Lincoln and Jack the Giant-Killer.
Newspaper photos, arguments, Mr. Touchdown USA, yellowed clippings, the Hall of Fame, The Star-Spangled Banner—they’re all football.
It’s a game of young men with big shoulders and hard muscles. It’s also a game of old pros, such as, 38-year-old Charlie Conerly quarterbacking the New York Giants to a football championship.
Football is popcorn, cokes, banners and cigaret smoke. It’s people standing for the kick-off, lap blankets, pacing coaches, penalties and melodious alma maters.
Football is a game of surprises. The big guy everybody picks in pre-season as All-American fizzles out. But a kid nobody ever heard of scores the winning touchdown and a star is born. It’s Tennessee going 17 games without being scored on. It’s also tiny Chattanooga upsetting mighty Tennessee, making a coach’s dream come true.
It’s the pro halfback who is a movie star. And the water boy who got into a game at Yale. It’s Bronco Nagurski butting down a sandbag abutment, and dwarfish Davey O’Brien disappearing from sight behind an array of 250 pound linemen. It’s Harry Gilmer jumping high to pass, and Coach Jim Owens proving that nice guys finish first.
Football is Bud Wilkinson, whose Sooners are 40 points ahead, walking up and down the sideline like a caged lion. It’s 35-year-old Paul Dietzel and 90-year-old Amos Alonzo Stagg. It’s 6′8″ Gene “Big Daddy” Lipscomb and 5′6″ Eddie LeBaron.
Women who don’t know a quick kick from a winged-T cheer every move on the field, waving pennants, purses and even mink stoles. That’s football. So is the pressbox with its battery of clattering typewriters. And the oldtimer who claims they played a better game in his day is a part of football, too.
It’s Ray Berry, who wears contact lenses, making unbelievable catches for the Baltimore Colts. And after the game, when he dons his thick glasses, he looks the part of a studious school teacher—which he is after football season terminates.
It’s a scramble for tickets, playing parlays, wide-eyed youngsters getting autographs, a fist fight in the stands, second guessing, banquets, icy rains, color guards, fumbles, goal line stands, homecoming queens, and the typical mutt running onto the field attracting everyone’s attention.