How Football Helped Me Forge a Closer Bond with My American Home

One American pastime that attracts millions upon millions of people from all walks of life is the game of football, whether on the high school, college, or pro levels. As I write this, the college playoffs with names like Sugar, Peach and Rose bowls recently wrapped with a national championship game won by Ohio State over storied Notre Dame. And the NFL playoffs will conclude on Sunday, Feb. 9, in New Orleans with the playing of the famed Super Bowl with the Roman numeral on the end. This year’s will be Super Bowl LIX, or 59 for those who aren’t experts in ancient numerology. 

It wasn’t long ago that I was blissfully unaware of any of this. You see, before I became a boarding student in the United States, I went to school in Shanghai, China. There I played sports like fencing, table tennis, squash, and many others. I understood a little of every sport, except one, and that is American Football. 

Sometimes my friends would invite me to play catch with a football, but I would always throw the worst spirals. And I didn’t do much better at catching. The oblong shape of the ball makes it a challenge to throw and catch it. There’s a technique to it that I hadn’t mastered at all. This was my only connection to American football. American Football, as opposed to the “football’’ sport known as soccer most everywhere else in the world, isn’t a popular sport in China; so my exposure to it was limited to those informal catches with my friends.

This would all change when I turned 12 in January, 2023, and went to boarding school for the first time in the United States. Our school had a football team, but I wasn’t familiar with the sport, so I joined the Varsity B soccer team instead. 

Throughout that first year, I had a roommate as it turned out, who was a big football fan and played as a lineman for our school team. Every night during our down time, he’d tell me the basics of football and how it worked on the field. My other friends would teach me how to throw and catch that once-strange oblong object. Finally I gained enough confidence to join my friends playing two-hand touch. It was then that I realized that football was a great fit for me and as exciting a sport as any I’d played in the past. 

It wasn’t long before I felt ready to try my luck with the football team. With the coach’s OK, I left the soccer squad to join the football team. I was a first team cornerback - a defensive position that covers opposing receivers. This wasn’t my favorite position, because you have to run with the receiver and the ball doesn’t get thrown to your receiver a lot, so it wasn’t that exciting for me. We also had a second team where I started both ways. On defense, I was a linebacker, while on the offensive side of the ball, I was a running back. These positions really got my blood going.

As a running back, taking the ball into my stomach, wrapping my arms tightly around it, and charging ahead like a bull toward a matador was a level of excitement I’d never experienced before. Unlike a matador, there isn’t a clear path ahead for a running back, so you find yourself bouncing off or trying to power through bodies as you make your way forward. That’s the theory anyway. 

My first football game was an away game on a Saturday. During the game, our first-team running back was injured, but the coaches didn't think I was ready to play yet, so they tapped another teammate to play for him. Our first-team running back wasn’t going to heal before our second game, so our coaches had to get me ready to substitute for him by teaching me the plays. 

In the next game, I had my first plays on offense. The first few plays, to be honest, weren’t the kind that would make any ESPN highlight reel. Maybe a lowlight reel. On my first play I gained 3 yards for my team, but on my second play I fumbled the football, though fortunately we recovered it. The next play, I got trapped in the backfield and gained negative yards. It was after that play that my coaches sent me back to the bench.

My performance, while admittedly underwhelming, was also the result of our team being undersized in places. We carried 7th and 8th graders among our 9th grade group while our opponents were made up of 9th graders together with some sophomores and juniors. 

But luckily our school also played other middle school teams. It was during the first middle school game we played, that I scored my first touchdown. I received the ball from an underhanded pitch from our quarterback and started to sprint towards the end zone with my teammates blocking in front of me. Our opponents were chasing me down, but I outran them and burst into the end zone before they tackled me. When I went down, I landed on  someone’s cleat, which made my right butt sore. But I still managed to smash the football into the ground and jump up to celebrate with my teammates. I can honestly say that bouncing up and down in the end zone with my buddies was the most exhilarating, joyful feeling I’ve ever had. 

I experienced the joy of scoring four more touchdowns during the season, in addition to playing second team defense at the linebacker position. The coaches even recognized me as the MVP for one of our games.

The three-month season went by really fast. Our team won four games and lost three. I’ve decided to play again in 9th grade, when I can hopefully start both ways, and play even more than before. 

Most importantly, I’ve enjoyed not only the deeper connection I’ve made through the rough and tumble of playing football, but also how the sport has helped me bond with my American friends and gain a better feel for the nation that has hosted me so warmly during my extended stay here.