By Carolyn Todd

Penn State

The X’s and Os and Four reasons Why Football Is Fun to Follow

In football, X’s and O’s refer to specific plays that are used in executing an overall offensive and defensive strategy for a game.  Males often learn the X and O game tactics through their own youth play experience, formal or informal, whether in backyard games, in junior high or high school, or beyond.  For many men, knowing football X’s and O’s is a part of growing up, a decidedly male thing in an overwhelmingly male sport.

For most women growing up, X’s and O’s are more associated with affectionate symbols for kisses and hugs sent on letters to friends as teenagers.  X’s and O’s as football game strategy is more often an alien concept than something that is truly understood.

Most women have never tried to play football.  Most of us have never seen a playbook.   If we learn the game, it’s through osmosis from the sidelines or from watching TV commentary on games.  If we’re lucky, someone knowledgeable about football will explain the game to us.

I hate to generalize.  There are males who are not into sports and never had the experience of playing or watching football. There are females who have learned football X’s and O’s through participation in informal play in neighborhoods or who participate in the growing trend of female football leagues for girls or women.

I knew a female who was the quarterback of her high school football team.  She was just smarter than any of the guys in her small high school in terms of executing game strategy, so the school made an exception to allow her to play.

But I was not one of those.  I barely knew how to spell football, and had only a passive interest in most other sports.

My Own Experience
I became a football fan through marriage to my husband, Terry. Football wasn’t part of my college experience or my family’s passion.   I had watched a few junior high and high school games. I lived in a decidedly pro-sports town, Boston, where I might get interested if the Patriots were Super Bowl contenders, but that was about it.  Any interest in football was more of a social experience than any strong passion for the game.

Terry and I had a long-distance romance.   I lived in Boston; Terry lived in Allentown, Pennsylvania.  During our courtship, I went to two games with Terry: the Penn State-Cincinnati game in 1985 at Cincinnati and the Penn State-Notre Dame game in 1986 at Notre Dame.

When Terry posed the marriage question, I had not yet been to Beaver Stadium, Penn State’s home field.   He said, “Carolyn, one thing you need to know about me.  I intend to go to all the Penn State football games.  You can go with me, or you can stay home.”

Basically, my choice was to embrace Penn State football or kiss him goodbye every weekend in the fall.  Beaver Stadium was 185 miles away from our intended home.  This wasn’t just a few hours out of a Saturday.  Each game would be a weekend commitment, an overnight stay.   I wasn’t about to stay home.

Ignorance in this instance was bliss: I wasn’t opposed to football, so I told Terry, “Sure, I’ll try it.”   It turned out that I loved Penn State football!

Over time I began to understand my own attraction to the game.  There are four aspects of the game that appeal to me:

1. the customer experience of being physically present at a game,
2. the chance to watch young players evolve over 4-5 years,
3. the game itself with its complex strategic elements, and
4. bragging rights with co-workers or friends.

Read my next blog post to learn more!

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