Football brings everybody together
by Avinash Thombre
As the nation is trying the forget the traumatic divide of the last few months, the recent Super Bowl championship is indeed helping in a manner of its own. Nothing brings us, folks, together as a good football game! This Monday, right after the 55th Super Bowl, as I waited early morning to get the oil changed for my car at our own Steve Landers Toyota, I witnessed the power of American football to bring us together no matter what our differences.
In these times of Covid, even a mundane oil change has become a different experience with long waiting lines, and everybody masked up sitting far from each other. About ten individuals were waiting to get their cars fixed up in the fancy waiting area, most glued to their smartphones flipping things away. Usually, at different times, which I have forgotten, I would look forward to eating freshly popped popcorn and walking around the dealership, checking out all the latest cars on the floor with their new features. However, this time around, the nice smiling lady who usually serves everybody greeted me and said, “Sorry, we no longer have popcorn because of Covid restrictions; but we have freshly brewed coffee or a hot chocolate, or any soda if you like.” I smiled and told her how I missed her popcorn, took my hot dark roast coffee, and sat in one of the chairs.
Like most others, I was glued to my phone, exchanging smiles with others through the mask on. Suddenly, a white man sitting next to me got up and walked close to a black man sitting nearby and said, “That Brady is one hell of a guy.” Without any delay, the black guy responded, “ I am telling you; Brady is going to go for another Superbowl, not sure he is going to retire.” And the conversation smoothly flowed from how the Chiefs could have done this move and that move and probably saved the game. When football is the common theme, all our barriers and differences somehow fall. Both men were happy to talk at length, bonded together only by their shared love for the game. The race was nowhere in the picture, nor was politics: it was pure love for football. The two men chatted for a while and then sat down.
As I watched this, I could not be mesmerized as I followed their free-flowing conversation; their pure humanness, spontaneous talking reminding me of how things could be as opposed to how things are. It is a striking reminder of the commonness we have between us and our humane purity no matter what color we are or the religion or the culture and other things that superficially separate us. We are united by our same insecurities, fears, likes and dislikes and hopes, and much more. Football does not need to be the only thing that brings us together — we all need to realize we are essentially the same and are common than different.
After these moments, the white guy went back to his seat; the conversation stopped, and we all reverted to silence. But football had broken the barrier, and I could feel that we were no longer strangers to each other. After a few minutes, the white guy pulled out a small card from his shirt pocket and got up from his seat, walking to the black man one more time. Showing his card to the black guy, he said, “I got my first dose of Covid vaccine last week.” The black guy said: “That is really good. I got my first shot two weeks back.” They further talked like two long-lost friends, exchanging information about if the vaccine was Moderna or Pfizer and all the associated comforts and discomforts with it. They ended with well: I am ready for the second shot even though it will be painful.
It should not take football or, for that matter, Covid for us to realize that we are more common than different.
