My Super-Sized Friend

I dedicate this to the friend who has taught me to love something with his whole heart. A tribute to you, Joe...

I am not someone who indulges in spectator sports, especially TV sports. But come every spring and I will make an exception. The Super Bowl.

To begin with, I have never been a big fan of American football. In fact, I once had a horrific experience of being trapped a hundred over miles deep in the state of Nebraska amidst nothing but dry corn fields and a week of NFL and college football reruns on TV. Well, it did help a little that I had plentiful supply of delicious Thanksgiving turkey and pumpkin pie from my college roommate Andrea's grandma. But still, one week of TV football can be detrimental to anyone's sanity. That, plus the fact that I am more of a Ronaldo (used to be Fandi Ahmad in the 80's) /World Cup/ole-ole-ole kinda fan.

Now, that was way back in 1996 when I was a new kid to the New World, wearing shoes still muddy with fresh American soil. To me, the footballers were a just pack of perky all-American boys with excessive good appetites and dangerously high levels of testerones, who couldn't decide if they wanted to be gladiators or rugby players, therefore combining the two for maximum mileage.

They were a boisterous sight to behold in the college cafeteria and held at least 80 permanent seats in the centre of the dining room, often oblivious to the rest of us puny citizens, as if they were in some sort of a serious pre-match camp. One had to be quick enough to grab any food in sight before the army arrived each time or you might be left with just a handful of raisins. At times I seriously believed we were paying to feed those hungry blokes.

Then I met Joe, a sophomore who was in my spring economics class in which we got clustered into the same homework group. One look at him and you'd know he was one of those football guys. If you're not sure, let me give you a few pointers: huge physique, military hair cut, baseball cap, athletic tee, and shorts at sub zero weather. Give or take a light NCAA jacket.

Now, Joe was a quiet fella who, to my mild astonishment, did not fall asleep in class like how you'd imagine jocks to. He dutifully turned up at every lesson without fail and copied notes. In fact, he was one of the few people in my group who actually turned up for our homework discussions. Lest you should mistaken football jocks to be academically-challenged slackers, let me warn you that he was definitely otherwise. Joe was always the serious one running computer programs and churning out figures and charts for our homework while the rest of us goofed around playing solitaire and sending chain emails.

There was one time after a discussion when it was rather late and he offered to walk me back to my dorm in the snow, and we had a hearty one-to-one talk on a more personal level. He hails from New York and is of Italian descent. Other than his football teammates, he had few friends on campus and pretty much preferred to keep to himself. He explained that some, if not most collegiate football players like himself, gain exceptional admission to schools based on their sports ability, plus he wasn't quite the star athlete. Therefore, he had to work doubly hard to keep up with the demands of schoolwork and extra football practice. He had to remain focused. I was very impressed with what I heard, and felt slightly guilty for blaming footballers for causing world famines.

From then on, Joe and I became friends. I would enlist his help for my linguistics homework, as he spoke with a heavy New York twang, very good for being my subject. He spent hours patiently answering my dummy questions while I recorded his speech for analysis. And from those conversations and interviews, I got to know him better. We were frequently seen walking around campus together that we quickly earned the nickname 'Barney and Tweety', with reference to our disparity in size.

Sometimes if I met Joe at the cafeteria, he would invite me over to have dinner with his teammates, from whom I'd find queer accents to be my next interview subjects. They were all affable gentlemen really, quite unlike the people you see on the field piling up on one another over an egg-shaped ball. However, I soon stopped joining them for meals because every time without fail, I would be severely reprimanded by the big guys for eating nuthin' even though I had consumed something like two pounds of meat and potatoes. Well, if I had continued merrymaking with them, I could jolly well have the size to join them on the reserves' bench in no time.

Maybe it was because I had a footballer friend that made me change my mind about the sport. Or maybe it was my football fanatic-cum-roommate Andrea (whose grandma you had been introduced to earlier) who conditioned me to enjoy this rugby game that Americans disguised as football. On weekends, I would make my way to the field to watch their friendlies or practices before hitting the gym. During the NFL or NCAA season, we would gather in the common room for nights of pizza, beer and more football.

Soon, it was time for spring term to end and so did my econs class. Joe and I were getting busy with our own activities and did not have many opportunities to meet. However, we remained in close contact by email and updated each other on everything, especially football. I fed him with interesting details about what I was doing, probably relieving him of his regimental lifestyle. In return, he taught me strength and passion for what he believed in.

Time flew by and I have since graduated, left the States and done a million other things. Joe, on the other hand, is now still doing what he loves most - football. He knew that he wasn't any Joe Montana, never good enough to play in the pro league, and so he considered applying for an extra minor to remain in college for an extra year just to be able to continue playing.

I remember asking him if it was worth putting his life on hold for a year for football, and his reply made my heart weep. He said, "it's not like tennis, or soccer, or golf, or basketball. This is something that I can never hope to do after I get out of college. Maybe yeah, I can play touch rugby with a few neighbors, but it's not the same."

Eventually, Joe graduated and drifted for a while working in jobs he didn't feel much for. Then one fine day two years ago, I received an email from him. His elation was bursting out of my monitor when I read it. He had got a coaching job for a local youth team in Pennsylvania and is not looking back.

And I got an open invitation to watch his kids play. And maybe, I will go for a live Superbowl game.