“Why are there so many rules? Do they like getting hit so much? Why do they even call it FOOTball if they avoid having to kick the ball?” For my entire life, all those questions have fluttered around in my head when I’ve sat down in front of a flat-screen TV at a chain restaurant or bar. Perplexed and irritated at the idea of their having to stop and reposition every player on the field every seven seconds, I was, it’s almost needless to say, put to sleep by American football. I will admit, though, that I have always found the Super Bowl entertaining, but it has mostly been because of the million-dollar commercials. Gotta love the mini Darth Vader from 2011.

Coming from a completely Latino (Argentinian) background, my parents taught me that football was a sport in which 22 men stepped onto a pitch and passed a spherical ball around, with their feet, and scored goals by shooting that ball into net kept up by two poles and a crossbar. Unless you were the goalie, using your hands meant a free kick for the other team and/or a yellow card for yourself. In other words, no hands.

Then my Polish-American Massachusite roommate turned our TV to channel six on Sep. 5, 2012. This was the NFL kickoff with the New

York Giants vs. the Dallas Cowboys. This being the first regular season game I had ever watched, my roommate introduced me to a world where one man on a team of 53 is allowed to throw the ball forward only once per play to another man who will run until he is pummeled to the ground by yet another man, who is around 6’6” and 275 pounds. And, strangely enough, the receiver will get up and celebrate. “Why celebrate getting thrown to the ground?” I asked myself.

“Welcome to the football,” said my roommate as he slowly outlined the rules for me so that I wouldn’t confuse an offside with a false start. That was my first real experience with football. Then, during Thanksgiving weekend, I went on to watch a record five football games in one day, an unimaginable feat considering my football-illiterate past.

Now that I consider myself a bit of a fan, I believe I have the right to criticize other fans of the sport. I see a lack of spirit. Coming from a background as a soccer fan, I do not understand how so many fans can be what we call “pechofrios” (or “cold chests”) in Argentina. Where is the heart? I cannot understand how those who call themselves “superfans” can just leave and stop cheering, or wear bags over their heads at games! Is there no shame in disrespecting your team, or switching preferred teams? I’m looking at you, Eagles fans. You, too, Fireman Ed.

Being a River Plate fan, I know what it means to suffer. But being relegated to second division did nothing but further reveal the fan in me. I had lost some touch, but I still watched every Saturday game. As shameful as it was to see the Argentinian equivalent of Real Madrid dropping divisions, I never put a bag on my head. I wore the jersey everywhere I went.