My Dad Still Watches the NFL
This is about the old lion and the young lion. This is about the moderate and the progressive. This is about a father who’s the same age as the four girls who got blown up in Birmingham and a son who married a white woman in Montgomery without the city bothering to blink. This is about the soldier and chef who raised a college professor.
But it’s not about that.
This is about a job. This is about how hard it is for some of us to get a job, let alone a good job. This is about all the times we were told anyone would be lucky to have us on their team but we weren’t a good fit for this team. This is about how it feels like we all got a good job when one of us gets a good job. This is about how much we love it when one of us says fuck this job and walks away. This is about how much we hate it when one of us says fuck this job and walks away because we know the next job might not ever become the next job. This is about how much we hate it when one of us says fuck this job and walks away because it reminds the world that we’re not brave enough to say fuck this job and walk away.
But it’s not about that.
This is about a quarterback kneeling. This is about how a quarterback kneeling can be the most beautiful play in sports or the most disappointing play in sports depending on the score. This is about all the times I called someone a bitch or a fag or a coward when they kneeled at the end of a Madden or NCAA Football game instead giving me another chance to hit them. This is about bravery and cowardice. This is about how you can only understand a quarterback kneeling if you understand the rules of the game. This is about game plans. This is about field position and risk. This is about offense and defense. This is about who has to worry about winning the game the right way and who just gets to worry about winning.
But it’s not about that.
This is about my nonnegotiable loyalty to black quarterbacks. This is about what Randall Cunningham could have been with more talent on the outside. This is about Doug Williams answering that question at the Super Bowl. This is about never seeming to forget what Michael Vick did and never seeming to remember what Roethlisberger did. This is about Tommie Frazier dragging the whole state of Florida behind him in the Fiesta Bowl. This is about Shaun King and second chances. This is about all the slot receivers and punt returners who could’ve been more. This is about everything y’all said about Jalen Hurts. This is about James Andrews owing a knee to RGIII. This is about seeing Cam Newton as a black quarterback before seeing Cam Newton as Auburn’s quarterback. This is about how some of us get to be gunslingers and some of us get to be reckless. This is about how Tom Brady’s MAGA hat was never an issue. This is about reading the field. This is about IQ. This is about leading the team.
But it’s not about that.
This is about supporting our own. This is about leaving an extra dollar on the tip if the server is black. This is about seeing Black Panther opening night. This is about staying a little longer to talk to the only other student who looks like us. This is about paying extra for something we could have ordered off Amazon. This is about reminding anyone who will listen that there’s a black-owned restaurant down the street, that there’s a black-owned bank down the street. This is about how we decide who to cheer for in reality show competitions or government elections.
But it’s not about that.
This is about labor and management. Billionaire owners and 40 million-dollar slaves. This is about who deserves to work and who deserves to toil. This is about black bodies and freedom and the terror that comes from putting the ideas of “black body” and “freedom” too close to one another.
But it’s not about that.
This is about November 8, 2016. This is about how you were able to go to work the next day when your friends couldn’t. This is about all the posts telling you the bad days were about to come when your skin and your name are the only timelines you need to know the bad days have been coming for a long time because the bad days were already here.
But it’s not about that.
This is about the loneliness that comes with being a black man. This is about being lumped in with every other black man or being asked to step over every other black man. This is about the battle royale that leaves us all bloodied and blind. This is about wanting to be left alone but not trusting ourselves to be alone. This is about feeling like Jesus only because we know we’re surrounded by Peters and Judases. This is about wanting to reach out but being afraid that the world will just see us as a black man reaching for something.
But it’s not about that.
This is about staying up late with my brother and watching Sportscenter in the den while we waited for dad to come home with a box of chicken fingers from his second job as a hotel chef. This is about telling my dad who hit a homerun or who got traded after he fell into the recliner. This is about telling him who won the game and how while he dozed off to our postgame analysis. This is about the tradition of a father and son. This is about talking about the car transmission or apartment security deposit in between talking about Westbrook and LeBron on Christmas Day. This is about talking about the new job in between talking about if the Cowboys will ever fire Jason Garrett and talking about if we can remember what happened to the most recently fired black coach.
But it’s not about that.
This is about coming home for Thanksgiving for the first time since my parents retired. This is about my father sitting in the den recliner and watching the Cowboys with his great-granddaughter in his lap and smiling at her with a smile he only saves for the smallest of us. This is about my father saying his great-granddaughter pays more attention to the television when Alabama is playing because her four-month old eyes know real football when they see it. This is about his great-granddaughter’s eyes still being big enough to see the world as a question instead of seeing the world as a world of tired answers. This is about my father not having to ask what time it is so he can get ready to pick up a pan of chicken from the back fence of the hotel. This is about time and knowing there will always be a time for questions. This is about time and knowing there will always be a time for fighting. This is about time and knowing there will never be enough down time in the recliner to reclaim all the time stolen from my father and his father and his father and his father. This is about knowing that there’s a time to fight and a time to sit down and love your father. This is about life and letting a black man live.
Jason McCall is an Alabama native. He holds an MFA from the University of Miami. He currently teaches at the University of North Alabama. His poetry collections include Two-Face God, Dear Hero, Silver, I Can Explain, and Mother, Less Child. His nonfiction has appeared in The Rumpus, Quarterly West, Nat. Brut, and other journals. He and P.J. Williams are the editors of It Was Written: Poetry Inspired by Hip-Hop.