A Family Affair

Delaney Couri 

When I was around 6 years old, I was on the football field of the college team my dad broadcast for, playing football with another little boy. At one point, we began to fake chase each other and, when I caught him, I performed my version of a kindergarten tackle. As soon as we got up, I was grinning from ear-to-ear but to my surprise, my kindergarten friend was not. Instead, he was sobbing, running off to his mother to cry and point his finger at me saying, “She tackled me, mommy!” In response to this, my mom pulled me aside and told me that I wasn’t supposed to tackle. I was confused and I told her as much; I had nearly been raised in this stadium and
watched enough games to know the rules. When a player on the other team has the ball, you tackle them! She informed me that tackling was meant for people wearing helmets, to which I scoffed, called the other boy a wimp, got in trouble for that, too, and went home.

A few years later I joined a flag football team at my school. It was fun, but the flags were always so hard to get that it frustrated me. The game was nearing an end and my team was winning when a player on the other team took off, going for the goal that would beat us. The flags were impossible for me to grab so, instead of doing that, I tackled him. I knew it was a penalty, yes, but I also had enough football knowledge to understand that I would rather take a penalty rather than lose the game. Well, just like last time, the kid I tackled ran off the field crying, I complained to my mom that he was a wimp, and I got in trouble. Unlike last time, and, most importantly, my team won the game.

Football has been an important part of my life from before I was even born. My mom and my dad met because of football. I would not exist without the game bringing them together. Not to brag, but my dad has been broadcasting football on the radio with the same team for over thirty years. He has also broadcast my high school football team and, my personal favorite, an arena football team.

Growing up, almost all of my best memories come from inside a stadium. From being covered in a celebratory Gatorade bath when our arena football team won the championship game in Shreveport, to sitting on the 50-yard line after a close victory against Marshall eating a pulled pork sandwich, to spending the week before Christmas in Hawaii for a bowl game, as far as football was involved, there was never a dull moment.

I still remember the time Tulsa won the conference after an incredible return off of an oddly bounced punt and standing for all seven overtimes to watch Texas A&M beat LSU. The way that my mom and I would hold hands and close our eyes on every onside kick and the way my glittery leggings gleamed gold the night of my senior year high school rivalry game. I submitted an engineering assignment sitting in the tunnel outside of the locker room at Houston when Tulsa lost by inches on a contested play. My mom and I covered ourselves in old cardboard beer boxes to keep from getting soaked in a game just last year against SMU that made Tulsa
bowl eligible. I also worked in the boxes at Texas A&M for one full football season, getting to the stadium before dawn and marveling at the way the fog slowly began to lift before we took on Florida.

In this time, there have been unbelievable wins and excruciating losses. I have yelled so loud I lost my voice and done my fair share of taunting that’s gotten me closer than I ever should to being kicked out of at least one stadium.

I still long for home each Friday night when my dad sends me pictures from the press box and students who attend my high school alma mater suit up to play a game.

I still miss the way that, on Saturday morning, my mom and I would get up early to watch our favorite football show. Sometimes dad would already be gone, off to the stadium three or four hours before the game begins to set up and complete the pregame show. On those days, it would just be me, my mom, and if she was up, my sister. I would sleepily make my way downstairs where my mom would be waiting for me with a cup of tea with honey. We would turn on College Gameday and watch, eat English muffins, do laundry and calculus homework, and wait for the rest of our Saturday to open up before us.

Each Saturday I think back on the way that, later in the day, my mom, sister, and I would pack up and head out, parking at a small lot across the University of Tulsa campus, crossing by tennis courts and a soccer field to make it to another stadium where hurricane alarms sound and again, and my dad would sit in the press box with his longtime radio partner, capturing it all so that when my mom headed out around the third quarter, she could still hear how the game turned out as she made the short jaunt home from downtown.

Although it’s impossible for me to be home every weekend, I carry on these traditions in College Station. Wearing my Texas A&M or Tulsa gear and situating myself firmly on the couch, awaiting College Gameday and the slate of games that follows. Sometimes I even walk the tailgates, reminiscing about all of the times my mom and I would wander them in cities unknown to us, feeling somehow at home in these places surrounded by kind strangers offering us a sandwich or a drink. Other days I throw my camp chair in the car and head out to a much smaller field to watch kindergartners play the same game I loved (and broke the rules of) when I was their age, supporting my friend’s kiddo as he chases the ball up and down the field, and play-tackling his little brother when he sits on the bench.

I once had someone tell me that football is stupid and pointless. A violent, good for nothing game that people wasted their time and money on. I tried to explain to this person why it was so much more than that, why it mattered to me and so many others, but I was never able to find the words. Now, I know that football matters not because of what happens on the field, though that is an exhilarating part as well, but what happens off it. In press boxes and police escorts, locker rooms and sidelines, quiet trips home after losses and boisterous celebrations after wins. Football for me is a family affair. Better yet, football is family.

So, if you’re ever looking for me on a Saturday, move toward the smell of turf on a field or of hot dogs on a grill at a tailgate or even tea and English muffins in my apartment. I guarantee you I will be there, sitting, standing, cheering, all the while falling more in love with the family and game I know so well.