“Everyone in my family except my uncle loves the Saints, but I’ve been a Packer fan for as long as I can remember,” she reports. “It makes things interesting when the Saints play the Packers.” Next to dreaming of a Titletown trip, Harris would like to personally meet Brett Favre. “I want to yell at him for going to the Vikings,” she says. Being a Packer fan is serious business, though, for this college student. Harris is trying to convert her sister from “Saint-hood” and says of a future partner, “Any guy I date had better be prepared to be a Packer fan.”
Into the game early Tony Parish comes by his Seahawks adoration naturally—he was born and raised in Seattle. But his son, Jordan, is free to choose. And choose he does. This 11-year-old NFL nut has his teams in order: #1 is the Steelers; #2 is the Seahawks; #3 is the Texans, Jordan reports. “My least favorite is the Broncos—I don’t like their head coaches,” he opines. Although he doesn’t play football because of an extensive hip injury in soccer, Jordan plays—and wins—in multiple fantasy football leagues. “I pick the Texans to win the Super Bowl,” he sagely announces.
Vegas, take note. His dad, Tony, hasn’t been to a Seahawks game since he moved to Montana, but he has not missed a Sunday game with his son. “Every Sunday we come here (to Buffalo Wild Wings). We try to get table 173 because it has the best viewing of multiple screens,” Tony proudly notes. “It’s the best father-son gig ever.” Therein lays the charm of football—it is everywhere, for everyone, in one form or another, from little tikes pulling flags, to Little Guys here in Billings, to the big leagues around the nation. For armchair quarterbacks to female-only fantasy leagues, football fever inspires, terrifies and in a milli-second call, just as easily can completely crush a fan. While baseball might be America’s pastime, football fans are not heading to the diamond from the Thanksgiving table—they are fumbling to find the pigskin. See you on the gridiron.
Top: St. Louis Rams fans Kooper Bond and Brennan Barta sit with Packers fan Nathan Pardy inside Hooligan’s Sports Bar while their two teams play against each other. Middle: Tony Parish reacts while watching a Seattle Seahawks football game while his son Jordan, left, is drawn to a different game. Right: Minnesota Vikings fan Charles Richard screams at a television while watching a game with Bears fans Chris Norwood, left, and Dan Porisch inside Hooligan’s Sports Bar.
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