the football fanatic

Ryan’s pretty tiny for almost 7.  Fully dressed (and just fed!) he weighs in at a whopping 42 pounds…but the kid’s pretty mighty in ability.  He loves football.  I mean…he LOVES football.  He lives for the weekend, when he can watch game after game on Saturday AND Sunday.  But he doesn’t just watch—he knows the teams and remembers what happens, too.  Last night we were watching the UO/Stanford game (numbers 7 and 4 respectively in the college polls) and someone asked who was ranked #1.  He promptly—and correctly—listed the top 5 teams in the current BCS rankings. 

While he watches football, he runs ‘plays’ in the living room.  Jim passes the football and Ryan practices his running catch.  He’s pretty good and only misses about 15% of the passes.  He’s clearly mastered the fine art of' ‘bobble/catch/fall/slide’ in our fairly limited space.  He would play like this all day if someone would pass to him.  And outside?  Absolutely!  He LOVES to play football with anyone who will throw for him.  But the thing that blew my mind today?  Listening to him.

He was watching the New Orleans/Atlanta game.  It was close to the end, and someone had just scored.  (I clearly wasn’t paying attention.  Actually, I had been  napping—HORRIBLE night here last night—and was only semi-awake.)  The game was nearly over, and I hear Ryan say “What are they doing?  If they want to win this game they need to do an onside kick!”   He no more than got the words out of his mouth than the broadcasters started a debate about what the team should do next.  Their conclusion?  An onside kick was the team’s best chance of winning.  Huh?  How on earth does my 6 year old know this?? 

So my tiny guy has football dreams.   Big ones.  He wants to play professional ball, then be a coach.  Pretty ambitious for a child in the 10th percentile for height and weight.  Maybe Mom can offer a bit of encouragement, though.  I was fortunate to go to high school with a football player who wasn’t the biggest guy on the team.  He was pretty good, too—spent 8 years playing professional ball.  :)  Someday, I might just have to introduce him to Ryan.  Maybe he’ll have some good tips for my dinky little dreamer.