Football americano

Playing for Pizza

One of the few things I miss about life in America is football, football americano as it is called here. My favorite team, The Buckeyes, will be playing for another BCS National Championship on Monday and I have been looking for on-line options to watch the game. I saw where FOX Sports might have a live video feed via the web, however the game will start at 2:00 AM on the 8^th Italia time.

I have grown up a fan of Cleveland sports, and yes a long suffering fan. The Indians had a good year in 2007 but again fell short and didn’t make it to the World Series where I know they would have won it all. The Cavaliers made it to the NBA Finals but had a lackluster performance. The Buckeyes made it to the March Madness Finals but again had disastrous results against a team from that school down south (not to be confused with that school up north).

Then there is the Cleveland Browns of the NFL, also known as the “Brownies” by their die-hard fans. I lived through the exciting years of Brian Sipe and Bernie Kosar and the playoff games that were so close against Denver but always fell short. Then there was the year when the owner, whose name I will not repeat, moved the team to Baltimore. There are three teams that Browns fans hate: Pittsburgh Steelers, Baltimore Ravens and the Denver Broncos. This year, for the first time since their new expansion team started in the NFL, the Brownies won ten games but are denied making the play-offs.

My brother sent me a book for Christmas that has a Browns’ football and Italy connection, “Playing for Pizza”. I am not a big John Grisham fan, having recently read the Broker which was partially set in Italy and I thought had some incorrect information on life here, I just don’t see what the hoopla is for his writing style. However, the story in this latest book was interesting with the connection to Cleveland and Parma (not the one near Cleveland) with insights on football americano in Italy. There is an IFL team at Ancona (dolphins.it), about one hour north of us, and I might need to check out one of their games this spring.

In the meantime…

Go Buckeyes!