Chip Shots: Another Super Bowl Column?
February 10, 2023 at 11:07 p.m.
Chip Shots: Another Super Bowl Column?
By Chip Davenport-
*Food, table, snort laugh*
While we’re on the food topic, it has a tie in to this morning’s thoughts… Super Bowl parties.
I haven’t attended a Super Bowl party since 1998, but I remember why I didn’t, and I don’t even believe the technological advances since then would make my conventional wisdom on the matter obsolete.
First and foremost, Super Bowl party-hopping is a bad idea, especially if you’re consuming alcohol, and jumping back into your vehicles to the next stop. Pick a party and stay there. Furthermore, the hosts want to enjoy the game while entertaining their guests. Movement of people in and out of the house creates a distraction especially for those who are heavily focused on the game.
Many parties will be sprinkled with guests who have little or no knowledge of the game, nor interest in it, but they enjoy being among friends, and maybe they’re a good hang regardless of their level of football knowledge.
These partygoers unwittingly take the moment of football’s biggest game at any level to take in an-game Football 101 crash course. In my days attending these parties they reminded me of a macroeconomics classmate I had at The Ohio State University (OSU) who liked skipping class but hunted me down to run through the entire 10-week quarter (yes, OSU was a “quarters school when I was there over 40 years ago) the weekend before the final.
Super Bowl Sunday will be the 22nd scheduled Sunday of the NFL season. Perhaps getting a clue about the game of football in just a handful of those weeks for folks in this caveat would make Super Bowl parties a little more bearable.
I think these folks aren’t reading this morning’s column, so if you know someone like this, give them a nudge in midseason. If they’re a Thanksgiving guest at your house, tell them it’s a great time to take a few weeks to understand the game of football. Perhaps even taking in a high school or college football in person would help.
Share with these folks how much knowledge they can gain from listening to what the broadcast team discusses between plays. Something like, “Hey, this guy on TV explains it way better than I explain it.”
If someone is new to the game, the product the NFL puts on the field has officials explaining what’s behind their calls, the penalties and the yards they cost a team, the broadcast team who tells viewers why a play just failed or just succeeded, and… voila… instant replay. Encourage these guest that they’ll get it a little better if they watch instant replay.
For those of you who have guests who already know a little bit about football but still ask what the score is, what is the offense’s down and distance, or what just happened I give you four words:
Watch the big screen.
The screen displays – almost non-stop – the score, the down, the distance, the time as well as sprinkling individual and team stats.
Watching the… screen isn’t a new concept.
I worked with a gruff-but-brilliant, retired military member in my first Air Force enlistment who coached us through the implementation of a new computer system. He and I were talking late into one of the evenings about our training plan for the next day while he repeatedly printed labels as the conversation continued.
He said, “Sergeant Davenport, you’re gonna stay with me and adhere these labels on every terminal.”
What was on those labels?
“READ THE SCREEN”
Same goes for your guest on Sunday. Of course, you can’t be as snarky, but you can say, “Don’t worry, it’s all right there, check it out, they’re doin’ instant replay.”
Enjoy your guests even if they fall into some of these categories.
More importantly, enjoy the game regardless of the outcome. Having children shifted my postgame disappointment almost immediately. It was remarkable, and unexplainable, and the transition seemed instantaneous.
It took 22 years for me to get riled up about an Ohio State loss (The Ohio State-Georgia game on New Year’s Eve). My wife noticed it. She said, “I’ve never heard you gripe that much watching a football game.”
“You know, Shawna, I wish I had pretended I had little kids around me again,” I said. “Maybe I would have been calmer.”
I hope your Super Bowl parties are a smashing success, and you get a little chuckle when the folks I’ve mentioned… do their thing.
*Food, table, snort laugh*
While we’re on the food topic, it has a tie in to this morning’s thoughts… Super Bowl parties.
I haven’t attended a Super Bowl party since 1998, but I remember why I didn’t, and I don’t even believe the technological advances since then would make my conventional wisdom on the matter obsolete.
First and foremost, Super Bowl party-hopping is a bad idea, especially if you’re consuming alcohol, and jumping back into your vehicles to the next stop. Pick a party and stay there. Furthermore, the hosts want to enjoy the game while entertaining their guests. Movement of people in and out of the house creates a distraction especially for those who are heavily focused on the game.
Many parties will be sprinkled with guests who have little or no knowledge of the game, nor interest in it, but they enjoy being among friends, and maybe they’re a good hang regardless of their level of football knowledge.
These partygoers unwittingly take the moment of football’s biggest game at any level to take in an-game Football 101 crash course. In my days attending these parties they reminded me of a macroeconomics classmate I had at The Ohio State University (OSU) who liked skipping class but hunted me down to run through the entire 10-week quarter (yes, OSU was a “quarters school when I was there over 40 years ago) the weekend before the final.
Super Bowl Sunday will be the 22nd scheduled Sunday of the NFL season. Perhaps getting a clue about the game of football in just a handful of those weeks for folks in this caveat would make Super Bowl parties a little more bearable.
I think these folks aren’t reading this morning’s column, so if you know someone like this, give them a nudge in midseason. If they’re a Thanksgiving guest at your house, tell them it’s a great time to take a few weeks to understand the game of football. Perhaps even taking in a high school or college football in person would help.
Share with these folks how much knowledge they can gain from listening to what the broadcast team discusses between plays. Something like, “Hey, this guy on TV explains it way better than I explain it.”
If someone is new to the game, the product the NFL puts on the field has officials explaining what’s behind their calls, the penalties and the yards they cost a team, the broadcast team who tells viewers why a play just failed or just succeeded, and… voila… instant replay. Encourage these guest that they’ll get it a little better if they watch instant replay.
For those of you who have guests who already know a little bit about football but still ask what the score is, what is the offense’s down and distance, or what just happened I give you four words:
Watch the big screen.
The screen displays – almost non-stop – the score, the down, the distance, the time as well as sprinkling individual and team stats.
Watching the… screen isn’t a new concept.
I worked with a gruff-but-brilliant, retired military member in my first Air Force enlistment who coached us through the implementation of a new computer system. He and I were talking late into one of the evenings about our training plan for the next day while he repeatedly printed labels as the conversation continued.
He said, “Sergeant Davenport, you’re gonna stay with me and adhere these labels on every terminal.”
What was on those labels?
“READ THE SCREEN”
Same goes for your guest on Sunday. Of course, you can’t be as snarky, but you can say, “Don’t worry, it’s all right there, check it out, they’re doin’ instant replay.”
Enjoy your guests even if they fall into some of these categories.
More importantly, enjoy the game regardless of the outcome. Having children shifted my postgame disappointment almost immediately. It was remarkable, and unexplainable, and the transition seemed instantaneous.
It took 22 years for me to get riled up about an Ohio State loss (The Ohio State-Georgia game on New Year’s Eve). My wife noticed it. She said, “I’ve never heard you gripe that much watching a football game.”
“You know, Shawna, I wish I had pretended I had little kids around me again,” I said. “Maybe I would have been calmer.”
I hope your Super Bowl parties are a smashing success, and you get a little chuckle when the folks I’ve mentioned… do their thing.
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