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I have no particular interest in Homecoming, mostly because it is all about football. While I grew up in a household where football was constantly watched, and I do have positive memories of sitting on the couch with my dad while he watched Sunday games, football is just not interesting.

I will not hide the fact that I am not a big sports person. I don’t really get what’s so exciting about a ball being tossed or hit. However, I can enjoy a trip to the baseball stadium, and I do not mind a volleyball match. 

But football? It just does not do anything for me. My eyes glaze over when it’s on the television, and I don’t really care about how the game is going or who is winning halfway through. Just tell me if we won or not. Even then, I don’t really care if we win. I will give it about half a second of emotion and then move on.

“Football is not a game that inherently makes sense. I should not have to know the rules inside and out of a game for it to be enjoyable.”

Part of this is my general aversion of sports. I am an art person; the only sport I ever really cared about was volleyball. That interest ended by high school and was replaced with a far more passionate hobby of performing arts. I’m just not the target audience for sports.

But a major detractor for me is the complexity of football. Other sports, like baseball, are easy. A guy hits a ball, and it’s pretty obvious whether or not he hit it well. Even when it is not obvious, there’s a person with a microphone who will tell me if it was hit well. I can also watch with ease as the game progresses; people run from base to base. The scoring and when a person is “out” are both very clear, and so is when the game will end.

Football is not clear. Football is so far from clear that I cannot process how it works. I do not understand how or why each play changes the yard line. Why is a touchdown six points? That feels like such an arbitrary number. Why are some tackles OK and others are not?

The announcers are not all that helpful either. I don’t know whether a play is good because I don’t know what the outcomes mean, and the announcers do not tell me. The timing also doesn’t make any sense. Why does each quarter have 15 minutes but goes on for ages? Football is not a game that inherently makes sense. I should not have to know the rules inside and out of a game for it to be enjoyable.

Football is also more dangerous than it is entertaining, and the danger that its players are in does not make the game more interesting to watch. It’s one of the most dangerous games out there due to the damage it can cause to the brain.

But because football is considered the quintessential American sport, it’s popularity among all age groups poses extra danger to the children and teenagers playing it. These people do not even have a fully developed brain, and yet they are willingly damaging it. And frankly, watching people jump at each other over a ball certainly is not fun enough to warrant any potential concussion.

People who don’t even participate also risk harm. Domestic violence increases by 10% when someone’s NFL team loses. There is no sport interesting enough that should have this result. Football is a bunch of grown men throwing a ball around; it is not important enough to warrant domestic violence.

Even when a team does win, people commit violent acts. Fans of the Philadelphia Eagles have trashed the city after Super Bowl wins. It is a game. It is not this important, and it is not this interesting.

Football is not an engaging sport. It is dangerous and complicated. It is simply boring.

Reach Audrey Weishaar at letters@collegian.com or on social media @RMCollegian.