SEPTEMBER 30, 2022 – We’re well into football season. What’s notable is that I’m mentioning it: I’ve never been a football fan.
For a short time last season, I developed an appreciation for the sport, thanks to our son Cory, who is not merely a fan but a close follower of all details regarding the game. Schooled once by his running critique of commentaries that he was watching on our TV, I realized that NFL football is an amazing combination of chess and finesse, integrated, of course, with gladiatorial head-butting and turf-pounding. This was all out of my league, however. To become as football-literate as Cory, I’d have to commit many hours. I soon became distracted by other matters and remained so ever since . . . until last night.
In a late sequence of unusually active dreams, I found myself a reluctant participant at a Vikings training camp session. I kid you not. The occasion doubled as a reunion for past generations of fans, coaches and players, including, of all people, the late Dennis Green—head coach from 1992 to 2001 (I had to look that up). Opening the dream sequence were a couple of overweight geezers with incredibly bad knees but who, nonetheless, attempted to revive past glory by running . . . er, hobbling . . . a few yards this way and that, the pigskin tucked under an arm.
As the dream progressed, the cast of characters divided into pods, and I noticed that in addition to bantering and indulging in a picnic of barbecue ribs, several able-bodied people casually emulated quarterbacks passing to wide receivers.
I was very much a loner in the scene; an invisible outsider—until I was noticed by Dennis Green, himself sitting alone, gnawing at a rib with sauce dripping onto a paper plate. He set the rib down, pulled out a football and motioned that he was going to pass it to me. I froze, whereupon, he gestured that I should run like a receiver, not like my former self when Cory was 10 and Byron was 7 and we’d play “stationary” catch with a rubber football in the backyard.
I picked up my feet, jogged a few strides, and turned to my right, careful not to run into a nearby group of fans and players. Green tossed the ball, and as if the eyes of the world were upon me, I tracked the ball intently. Nerves got the best of me, however, and though my hands made contact with the football, it slipped through and bounced on the ground. I managed somehow to throw the ball back to the coach—or close enough for him, in turn, to touch the ball, before my less-than-perfect spiral (!) pass pulled away from his grasp. I cut him slack, given that he was seated, his fingers greased with barbecue sauce.
He passed to me several more times, but in the growing darkness, my eyes lost contact with the silhouetted projectile when it fell below the horizon.
Yet, I couldn’t end the passing game—er, dream—in failure. I adjusted my position so that my vision wouldn’t have to adjust for the contrast between the fading light of the western sky and the unlit zone below the horizon. Moreover, I closed the distance between me . . . and the “quarterback.” I motioned for Coach Green to give me one more chance. Just as he lobbed the ball my way, I . . .
. . . woke up. In the bright morning sunshine, I imagined that after a solid reception, I’d run into the end zone and brought 40,000 fans to their feet. A guy is never too old to dream big.
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© 2022 by Eric Nilsson
