Melissa Explains It All: Tales From My Abnormally Normal Life (26 page)

It’s easy to see how one of America’s most popular sports evaded me until I was twenty-six years old and fell for my husband. During one of our very first conversations, he asked me a question whose answer, he said, “might be a deal-breaker” for our relationship.

“What do you do for fun on a Saturday in the fall?” he asked.

It seemed like a simple enough question, and while I knew he was getting at something, I had no clue what. I proceeded with caution. I told him if it was September, his birthday month, we could do whatever he wanted! He said that was a good answer, but not the right one. The only other thing I knew guys cared about doing on Saturdays was watching men “throw the rock all over the yard” (another Urban Dictionary ref). Once I figured out he was talking about football, and he figured out that I had no interest in football, we both let out an exasperated sigh.

I racked my brain for “opposites attract” success stories with an athletic bent. In
Fever Pitch,
Drew Barrymore has a good relationship with Jimmy Fallon’s baseball-fanatic character, and they shared a happy ending. But then in real life, I also had friends whose husbands never made plans on weekend afternoons, because they’d rather watch some ridiculous time-sucking sport. I always found it so silly to stare at other people doing amazing things on a tiny screen, instead of getting out there and doing something amazing in real life. But since I was just getting to know Mark, and I thought he was really hot, I decided that I wasn’t going to get all crazy on him about his passions versus mine. At least, not yet. I figured I could roll with him being occasionally distracted, since it was a small price to pay for being with Mr. Right. In fact, I’d do him one better. I’d be the best football-fan girlfriend he’d ever known.

When Mark invited me to my first University of Alabama football game while we were dating and living in L.A., I strategically packed my bag for the trip to Tuscaloosa. I knew this was going to be a particularly big game because it was against Alabama’s most rivaled team, the Auburn Tigers. I wanted to do it up right. Mark’s U of A team is called the Alabama Crimson Tide, which means the team color is mostly a deep red, with hints of white and gray. Sometimes those colors are paired with a black-and-white houndstooth pattern in honor of its beloved legendary coach Paul “Bear” Bryant, who used to wear the design on his hat while making calls from the sidelines. With this in mind, I realized that I might not know much about the game, but I could at least dress the part and hope it proved my devotion to Mark and the Crimson Tide.

For my first real football game, I wore what I thought was both appropriate and enthusiastic gear that I bought at a team store in Alabama. It was also practical clothing. I’d been to a few sporting events before, and it was always a priority to be comfortable, prepared for beer spills, and dressed for walking to and from the tailgates. For me, all this boiled down to a team T-shirt with jeans, a team hair scrunchie, earrings with the team’s rally chant, “Roll Tide!” printed on them, sneakers, and a team hoodie tied around my waist in case it got chilly at night, even though it was humid and hot outside. I also painted the words “Roll Tide!” on my cheeks. At the time, the stadium held ninety thousand screaming fans that I was told never sat down and always shook their red, white, and gray pom-poms frantically. I, too, bought pom-poms that’d give me an excuse to scream my head off for my man’s team and show him what a good sport I could be.

Once we arrived at the tailgate parties at one of the sorority houses on campus, I realized how inappropriately I was dressed for a proper Southern football game. All the girls, including my in-laws who came, were wearing nicely pressed skirts and pants that were in team colors but in no way bought at the fan shop. Some had on pearl necklaces, and each one of them looked more prepared for a job interview at a law office than to pound beer in a parking lot. When the girls asked me, “Could I have my picture made with you?” in their dainty Southern accents, I realized it was less about taking pictures with a celebrity and more that I looked like the team mascot. But I was used to standing out in a crowd, sometimes for the wrong reasons (see: Kentucky Derby). I went with it. I also yelled at Mark for not warning me about how foolish I’d look next to all those genteel girls when he saw me getting ready earlier that day.

“I thought you looked cute,” he replied. I could’ve died.

*   *   *

In the South, football devotion comes second only to the Bible—and unfortunately, the worshipping of both happens on Sundays. Even the pastors are aware of the game schedule, because they know full well that if their sermon goes over by even a minute, the congregation will start sneaking out the back to see the start of the game. In Alabama, more people stick around, since the state doesn’t have its own NFL team and they love college football, which is played on Saturdays. It took me years to realize this and then learn the differences between college NCAA and the NFL.

Mark’s family hails from Tuscaloosa as far back as they can trace, which isn’t very far. When I first met Mark and asked where he was from, he told me “America.” I rephrased the question and asked his heritage. “American,” he said. But where were his ancestors from? “America!” He doesn’t have a clue or care about his bloodline, but the one thing he will point out is that they’re from the home of Alabama’s Bryant-Denny Stadium and his beloved Crimson Tide.

You’d think that a guy who lives and breathes a college football team must have learned to love the sport from years of university pride and homecomings, but no. In the South, and especially in Alabama, college football affiliations are born, not raised. As I said, Alabama has its two major football teams, Alabama and Auburn. They’re the biggies, the old staples, the stuff of legends and legacies. There are also smaller teams like Troy and University of Alabama at Birmingham, or UAB, but they’re small potatoes. So you’re either born into one “family” or the other. In Mark’s case, his father and sister are both Alabama alums, and while Mark himself went to rival Auburn for a short time, he hates them as much as a Yankees fan loathes the Red Sox.

Following your team’s adversaries is almost as important as caring about the team itself. Knowing who rivaled whom was hard for me to follow in the beginning. I could never understand why Mark had to watch every Auburn game. If you like Alabama, just worry about Alabama. When I asked Mark why he did this if he hated Auburn so much, he slowly turned his big head and widened eyes toward me and carefully said, “Because I need to make sure they lose.” It’s the same annoyed look he now uses on our kids when they ask “Are we there yet?” during a car ride. To this day, I still don’t get why my day has to be ruined just so Mark can see a team weep. Couldn’t we catch the highlights on SportsCenter that night? He’s going to have it on anyway to watch recaps as I drift off to sleep dreaming of nachos and Peyton Manning.

Though I was still intent on being an über-girlfriend after that first outfit fail, dealing with Mark’s devotion to his team and their contenders became challenging when I realized how much of my weekend was disappearing in front of a TV. For those who don’t know, games last three hours minimum, so just two games in one day sucked up six hours of my time. Saturdays and Sundays used to be filled with adventurous excursions, race car driving, and Sunday brunches. But with Mark, they became a time to dutifully sit by my guy’s side, while catching up on cheese-dip eating and tabloid reading, neither of which is good for the waistline.

I remember asking my friend Kimi, another sports widow, for tips, and her best one was, “When watching football with your man, just look up once in a while and ask, ‘Now who did he used to play for?’ He’ll talk for at least fifteen minutes, you’ll seem like you care, and then you can go back to your
InStyle
or whatever.” Let me tell you, that worked. It still does. I even used Kimi’s idea while writing this book. It was the only way to get time to myself while having Mark think I’m showing an interest in his sport, which means an interest in him and our relationship.

As you can see, not much has changed now that we’re married, but there are random moments when I actually enjoy the game and wonder,
Who have I become?
Like when I’ve spent weekends alone while shooting on location and scream at the hotel TV while wearing my lucky Roll Tide T-shirt. I started watching so I’d know the final score if it came up with Mark at home, or worse, to see if a loss might cause him to be in a lousy mood all week. But now I tune in out of habitual interest. I recently realized how far I’ve come when I pretended to breast-feed our third son, Tucker, so Mark would put the other boys to bed and I could catch the end of a Giants game. Or when I occasionally call a foul before the refs or commentators do. It makes me feel so satisfied and informed, and I always look over at Mark to see if he’s impressed by me too. He hardly notices.

The biggest thing Mark and I have in common is that we wear our hearts on our sleeve; for Mark, this goes for his football affair too. To prep for each season, he studies press reports and Internet stats, and has endless conversations all summer long with anyone who knows anything about the Crimson Tide or NCAA football. By fall, when his team takes the field, Mark has a precise knowledge of who the players are, what their strengths are, and where their weaknesses might lie. He has such a vast knowledge of the game, calling every play and complicated rule, that I really believe he missed out on being an ESPN reporter. We’ll watch a game with about one hundred college kids on each team, with changes to its roster every year, and Mark will announce every player’s first and last name, jersey number, and which high school he came from. Screw ESPN; Mark needs a job recruiting for the NCAA. As for me? It took a year to even learn what a “line of scrimmage” is. (It’s the line they form when they’re about to snap the ball. See, aren’t you wowed?)

Most impressive is Mark’s enthusiasm for the young brutes chasing a tiny triangle-shaped ball, maybe because he was one of them. The man was built for the game and worked hard to be the best receiver on his high school team, the Enterprise Wildcats. He took his sport so seriously that I believe it’s what kept him out of trouble as a kid and teenager. He rarely partied like his friends did, because a hangover could affect his game. He spent most of his spare time training in some form or another, either at the gym, at speed camp, or by watching film of his plays.

These days, Mark paces the room during a game and demonstrates his ardor not with his broad shoulders or strong quads but with his amazing vocal cords. Remember that my husband is a rock singer, so he has the ability to make his voice incredibly loud and intimidating. Imagine naively reclining on the sofa on a rainy fall afternoon, catching up on the latest celebrity adoptions, when out of the blue this deep, dark, and extremely powerful voice screams, “HOLDING!!!” It’s enough to give me the hiccups for weeks. When I was pregnant, the baby would literally jump inside me from shock. I’ve become so accustomed to Mark’s shouting at the players that I encourage him to get tickets and head South to the games, because I know he won’t have a voice for at least three days. That’s when I take my cat naps on the couch.

*   *   *

When Mark and I first met, I thought it was healthy for him to have a hobby, even if it involved men wrestling around in the dirt over a ball. We’d snuggle on the sofa, snack on chips and salsa, and I’d think,
This could be a nice change of pace and a great way to spend time together.
I didn’t mind his T-shirts with the team logo and mascot, because they were a warm shade of red. And when he bought me Alabama pajamas and hair accessories, I may have secretly preferred a La Perla nightie and diamonds, but I appreciated the team gear as a sign that Mark cared.

But the more I allowed this and possibly egged him on by acting grateful and interested, the more Alabama football began to tackle our lives. For every holiday or birthday, Mark’s family would give us large, illustrated prints of his favorite team plays, and we’d hang them on our walls. He bought signed footballs that took over our bookshelves. Once Mason was born, the house was filled with Bama onesies, baby-size jerseys, and bottles and pacifiers stamped with huge red “A”s from all his Alabama family and friends. He even hung a mobile in the nursery that played a twinkly rendition of the school’s fight song and dangled with elephants that had tiny “A”s stamped on their sides. Eventually we bought a giant SUV Yukon XL Denali, in crimson, of course, that now has championship stickers stuck all over the rear window. This is not good news for tinier cars on the highway, since the collage creates a major blind spot.

When we lived in Encino, I thought I’d show my husband how much I loved him by throwing a Super Bowl party in our impressive home theater. I ordered three kegs of beer, put cheese dip and pretzels all around the house in bowls shaped like footballs, and had Hooters send over their famous wings and a few big-breasted girls to kick the party up a notch. My friends Eryn and Kimi brought me my own Hooters shirt to drive home a theme, as usual. This was the year Janet Jackson had her wardrobe malfunction, which we replayed over and over on that really big screen, thanks to a new invention called the DVR.

But once halftime was done, our party went south and so did Mark’s patience. He told me he didn’t like entertaining and chatter during Super Bowl Sunday, since it distracted him from the game itself. He went in the other room to try out those chicken wings, but they turned out to be undercooked and gave everyone stomach issues. He slid his arm around a blonde wearing my coat, and realized he wasn’t snuggling me but a chilly Hooters girl who’d borrowed my jacket. Though I had a great time surrounded by friends and comfort food, Mark sarcastically thanked me at the night’s end for “trashing up his sport.” I didn’t realize that when dealing with a true sports fan, even Hooters girls are a bad diversion. I was angling for Wife of the Year, but I’d have been better off leaving him a seven-layer dip and taking off for the mall.