Why Football Matters

For my father and I, football wasn't just a spectator sport, it was a bridge to communicate.

By Michael M Clements

The author (in B. Johnson Jersey) and his father Michael R Clements to left entering a Tampa Bay Buccaneers football game Nov 25th, 2012. (Photo credit: Michael M Clements) 

As NFL opening day approached this year a lot of conversation revolved around negative impacts of the sport. Specifically, impacts to the head, long-term health concerns for retired players, the overall disposal nature of the sport, domestic violence issues, drug suspensions and PEDs, etc. These are all important issues and deserve discussion; but today, on opening day, I wasn't thinking about any of those. In fact, I wasn't even thinking about if my team the Tampa Bay Buccaneers would win their opening game (okay, I was thinking about that a little, I admit it.) What was occupying my thoughts completely – and the force of whose appearance caught me as off-guard as a blind-sided QB – was my father, Michael R Clements, who unexpectedly passed away this past February.

You see, football was more than a sport for us, it was a bridge – a way for us to communicate as father to son, man to man. Growing up as a street-tough and fatherless kid in Jersey City, NJ, my dad didn’t do Oprah-esque heart-to-hearts about life and feelings in order to bond. Instead, we had football. A season ticket holder since the Bucs inaugural season in 1976, the games we attended and watched, along with the countless talks we had about wins, losses, plays and players, were our common bond, our great connector.

Most of my memories about my father revolve around football. His first love was baseball. I played soccer. Football was our only mutually-shared sporting bond. We both loved the Bucs. After moving to Florida in the early '70s my dad swore off his New York teams – although he always maintained a special hate in his heart for the Yankees. Growing up, he went to The New York Football Giants games at the Polo Grounds. But with his new sunny home, came new sunny loyalties. He enjoyed college football. During the falls, we would make the trek up I75 to Gainesville to watch the University of Florida Gators. I wound up attending Florida State University – their main rival. That contrarian nature was the main reason why, mostly, all we had in common were the Bucs. Our Gator-Seminole rivalry lasted our entire adult lives and became a source of annual bragging and cajoling. Each year, after the UF / FSU football game, the victor would invariably call the loser. Heckling ensued. I took great joy in making him listen to the FSU fight song. In years UF won, I dreaded answering the phone. I’m convinced when he made it to the pearly gates this year my dad protested to the attending angel, “Couldn’t you've taken me in year the Gators won the national championship? Or at least NOT the year FSU did?” 

Thankfully, we had the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. Not that that was any easier. During the early years, from when the Bucs were 0 and 26 and Steve Spurrier was the QB to when chants of “Throw McKay in the Bay” echoed throughout the bare-cement pillars of the old Sombrero, being a Bucs fan was painful. I was pretty young then and we didn’t attended many games together. We did, however, watch away games at home. It was always a bit edgy watching the games with my dad. He would get overly animated, yell at the TV and do tons of gesticulating. Let's just say, I learned a lot of new vocabulary. When we'd score, we’d jump around and scream as a family, and give hugs and high 5s. It was awesome. I remember one time in the early '80s my dad jumped around so much he split his pants. Seriously.

Attending the games was a visceral experience – the cheering, the yelling, the exaltation, the verbal and sometimes nearly physical confrontations. Back in the days of the former Tampa Stadium, aka, "The Big Sombrero," when the Bucs were in the NFC Norris Division, the beer flowed freely, shirts were optional, and you could invariably catch the wafting scent of marijuana at least once a game. This was the unsanitized NFL before billion dollar stadiums, jumbotrons and cell phones and apps that brought you custom catering in gluten free hotdog roll. The only entertainment around were annoying handheld two-way AM radios people brought to hear the radio cast and, well, we actually talked to each other. Back then more Bears and Packers fans would be at the games than Bucs fans, which lead to a lot of, ehm, cross cultural exchanges. I learned even more new vocabulary at the games than at home. It was also the only time I ever caught glimpses of my dad’s scrappy Jersey City side. When things got dicey but my dad kept us safe. But, mainly, we supported our team and had a blast.

The old Tampa Bay Stadium, aka, "The Big Sombrero". (Photo credit: St. Pete Times)

My father was a creature of habit. He always left at the same time, walked to the stadium the same way, entered through the same gate, and arrived early enough to watch pre-game warm-ups. He even drove the same way and parked in the same lot – a yard someone had turned into makeshift parking lot to make a few extra dollars during the season. The gentleman collecting the money knew us. We were regulars. Year after year, we’d park there and he’d greet us with the same enthusiastic salutation each opening day, “This is the year, Mike, this is the year.” The old Tampa stadium had bleacher seats without backs, so we had to carry our own portable seats. Something unthinkable today. My dad had a beer or two but never too many. We’d sit in the Florida sun, baking. I used to melt ice cubes on my thighs to stay cool. We’d always have seats behind the opposing team’s bench. By the '90s we moved to the 48-yard line, about 10 rows up. You could really feel the games there. On the drives to the game, we listened to the pre-game AM radio show and discussed outcomes and strategy. It was always animated. We talked the most then. We were excited. Ready to win. During the games, we played arm chair quarterback and cheered or jeered our team. Afterwards, on the ride home, we either talked excitedly if we won or listened quietly to the post-game broadcast if we lost.

Once I moved out and went college, graduated and got my own place, I only attended one or two games a year when I came back to Florida, usually during the holidays. But, we spoke almost weekly. Without fail our conversation started with the Bucs. "Who did they draft?" "Why did the QB make that stupid throw?" "Why didn’t the ref call that penalty?" "Should they fire the coach?" And so on and so on it went. By the late ‘90s, after two decades of futility, the Bucs became good. As a family we all enjoyed the winning. The team had a new stadium, new uniforms, a new song, and they were winning. The games were most enjoyable then. No more were we minorities to obnoxious Eagles, Packers or Bears fans. Bucs fans ruled! I was old enough to have beers with my dad. After games we won, we'd get wings and bask in victory surrounded by other fans. We had Warren Sapp, Derrick Brooks and Warrick Dunn. The Bucs were finally winners. Ah, the salad years.

By 2000, I had moved overseas. I was living in Hong Kong the year the Bucs won the Super Bowl. During the NFC championship game that year, there was no place in Hong Kong to watch the game, so I loaded up on calling cards and had my dad put the phone up to the TV so I could hear the play-by-play. During commercials, he went into detail, just like how we used driving to the games. After they won the NFC Championship – sorry, Eagles fans – my parents bought a plane ticket to San Diego without a ticket to the Super Bowl in the hope that they could scalp two. They succeeded and watched in person as the Bucs ascended to Super Bowl champions. No doubt that was one of the highlights of my dad’s life. The lead-up to that helped bridge the gap between me being overseas and not being closer to home.

As I grew from a seven year-old to a married man in my '40s, there was one constant between my father and I –  the sharing of the NFL season. When he passed away at the age of 70 this year, I had the unenviable task of sorting through his life's belongings. I’m sure it’s been said before, but, one of the ironic tragedies of the death is that you only fully get to know somebody after they're gone. My dad kept important mementos from his life. He wasn’t a hoarder by any stretch – they all fit neatly into a file cabinet and a few dresser drawers. But in there I found a treasure trove of sports memorabilia. It was like opening a time capsule from our past together. For example, before each new season, my mom, dad and I would predict the Bucs seasons' wins and losses totals. My dad would put his on the season schedule he received with his season ticket package. I found a stack from 1976 to 2004. Each one had his prediction meticulously marked next to each game, “W” or “L”. Many had his season’s final tally added up. Some had my picks. Important games had asterisks. He kept the majority of his ticket stubs too. I went through them all of them and carefully placed each into a plastic photographic book. As I did, I flash-backed to the games we attended.

My dad was a banker and an amazingly caring and loving father but he could also be uptight. Seeing the tickets reminded me how he would hold them until we were just about enter the stadium. He looked me in the eye, “Don’t lose it,” he'd say as he handed me my ticket. I would huff back, “You mean lose it in the next five feet I before I hand it to the ticket taker?” My father and I were like vinegar and oil. He was the banker, the pragmatist, the punctual planner. I was the artist, the improvisationalist, the “figure it out as you go” creative type. But we had the Bucs. 

I always yearned to hold the game tickets all the way from home to the stadium. I recalled this feeling painfully this year as my father flew back from DC to Florida feeling ill. He had planned to visit DC for five days to meet my new son and his grandson for the first time, but on day three, he said he wasn’t feeling well and asked to go home. I bought his ticket, brought him to the airport, checked his bags, checked him in, and escorted him to security where I handed him his plane tickets. It was the only time he I ever handled the tickets. It was the last time I ever saw him. He flew home and passed away that same day.

My father kept almost all of his Tampa Bay Buccaneers memorabilia, including this program from the teams' first pre-season game ever and team posters sent to season tickets holders.  (Photo credit: Michael M Clements) 

As I continued to go through my father's life keepsakes, I found an amazing array of sports memorabilia – including a number of Bucs team posters from their first decades, programs of the first Bucs games, countless newspapers and magazines documenting big wins and every conceivable print story he could get his hands on about their Super Bowl victory. I found stacks of ticket stubs – ones even from the Polo Grounds – pins, hats, parking passes, letters to season ticket holders, commemorative paper weights and autographed photos and cards, just to name a few. I would say the more than 50% of everything my father kept was dedicated to the sporting events he attended and loved. Sports meant that much to him. 

He had an encyclopedic memory of sporting events. One time, at at a party in DC about three years ago, I found my father cornered by a man around my age, who was equally erudite about random sports facts. He’d ask my dad, “So, you were at the BLAH BLAH championship game in 1950-something?” And my dad would say, “Yeah, so and so threw two touchdowns to so and so that day.” Sports junkies loved my dad for that. I never got into sports history that way. Perhaps that's a baseball thing. He loved the detailed nature and history of baseball. He was a big Tampa Bay Rays fan, and later in life, as my nephew Steven Daniel grew up, my father shared his love for the Tampa Bay Rays with Steven just as we shared the Bucs. For Steven and “Pop-pop,” baseball became their connection, their bridge.

One of the last football games my father and I attended was in November 2012 and Steven was there. I remember thinking how special it was to have three generations there. My dad had slowed down a lot by then. His leg had been giving him trouble and he limped slightly and walked gingerly. It sadden me to see that. We got there early. He parked in his usual spot. It was a beautiful sunny Florida day. The three of us made it to our seats, bought some beers and hot dogs (mustard only, no ketchup) and watched as the Atlanta Falcons beat the Bucs pretty soundly. But by then the games weren’t about winning or losing, they were about spending time together. The connection had transcended the game.

At the November 25 2012 home game vs the Atlanta Falcons with my father and nephew.  (Photo credit: Michael M Clements) 

Speaking of gut wrenching loses, the Bucs lost their opening season game today. It was an awful start to the season; yet, one I’ve witnessed many times before. Somewhere my father was looking down mumbling, “Same ole Bucs.” That was a familiar rallying cry for us throughout the years. You can’t be a lifelong Bucs fan without being able to absorb disappointment and heartache. “Same old Bucs,” became a simple and succinct mantra which acknowledged another loss without having to expend too much emotional energy. I always dreaded those long silent car rides home to Clearwater over the Courtney Campbell Causeway after a loss. Not because my dad was angry, or because we lost, but because, I knew that our time together would soon be over. Shortly, we’d be back home and into our typical father-son routine. Not a bad thing, but never as good as being at the game. The farther we got from the stadium, the farther we traveled from our comfort zone.  

I was surprised how emotional opening day felt. I did not intend to pen this when I woke up today. Football after all is just a game. And one, as noted earlier, that comes with a lot of societal and cultural baggage. But I could not ignore the importance it played in my relationship with my father. Today was both my first opening NFL day without my father and my first as a father. Bittersweet indeed. How I wished Pop-pop was with my son and I, watching on sofa. I’m not sure I’ll have the same football connection with my son. Lord help me if he becomes a Washington fan. It seems these days the corporate nature of the NFL experience as well as the price of entry is a bit different. I can’t imagine having season tickets for any NFL team for 40 years. My hope is that my son and I have a common experience which connects. For my father and I, that connection was the Tampa Bay Buccaneers and that’s why, in my humble opinion, football matters.