I’ve become a football fan again.

I grew up watching the 49ers in the early 90’s, when they were fresh off 4 Super Bowls and expected to win more. Some of my first coherent sentences were exclamations about football games. I remember the pure childish joy from Super Bowl XXIX when the 9ers whooped the San Diego Chargers and my favorite player, Ricky Watters, scored 3 touchdowns. I remember crying after the 49ers lost in the 1998 NFC Divisional Playoffs to Chandler and the Atlanta Flacons, when our best player, Garrison Hearst, broke his ankle on the first play from scrimmage. My dad told me afterwards, “it’s just football, it doesn’t matter. You don’t need to be so upset.”

It seems at 36 years old I'm still learning that lesson. This is the story of football in my life thus far.

Candlestick

I have fond memories of Candlestick Park growing up. My parents had two season tickets for a while. Occasionally I got to go with my dad, maybe twice a season or so. I remember parking in the dirt lots outside the dilapidated stadium. I remember the long drive both ways; San Francisco was far from East side San Jose. We would bring unsalted peanuts and drinks, arriving early for warmups. My parents had north end zone seats for a while, row 10. They were great seats; you could feel the effervescence and fervor of the game. It wasn’t a passive observation platform, but an experience.

One November Sunday in 2001 I attended a regular season game against the Philadelphia Eagles with my dad. Right in our end zone, the 9ers completed an incredible goal line stand, stopping the Eagles on 6 straight plays from inside the 2 yard line. We stuffed the run on a first set of downs, but incurred a penalty on third down. With a fresh set of downs from the 1 yard line, we held them on three straight plays again, the last of which we intercepted Donovan McNabb in the end zone. It was absolutely bedlam in the stadium, particularly in our end zone. It was probably the first time I experienced the joy of high-fiving random strangers at a football game, when, in that moment, you're one tribe with the team.

Playing the Game

This was all before I played football. Actually playing the game is a completely different experience.

Captains walking to the coin toss in high school, November 2005

I remember playing two-hand touch during recess when I was in fourth grade. We had a blast, and I learned a lot—I remember learning how downs worked. Until then, I thought the offense got to run as many plays as they wanted until they scored or got tired. I didn’t really understand down and distance, and definitely didn't understand special teams or change of possession.

In middle school and my freshman year of high school I ran cross country, which conflicted with the football season. But my friends were on the football team, and I wanted to join. I had no idea how organized football worked. I distinctly remember my mom and I trying to figure out how to put on my leg pads before my first practice. I wasn’t very good at first, but I started to learn the game. I continued to rise on the depth chart through high school, developing into a good player my senior year. By that time I loved playing the game, and wanted to play in college. I chose to attend Occidental College, a Division III school, because it was one of the schools that recruited me. In my collegiate career I fought through a lot of injuries and never developed to my full potential, but I helped my team win some important games.

Concussions

Then there's the concussion issue. I didn't escape that either, "receiving" (isn't that a strange way to word it?) multiple concussions throughout my playing career.

One happened in practice in high school—a kid essentially head butted me during a blocking drill and I was literally stunned. The position coach running the drill wanted me to save face, since I was a senior and this kid was a junior. He had us do the drill again and I “defended my honor” by besting the kid the second time. I remember participating in the rest of practice seemingly without incident. When I got home that afternoon, I kept repeating myself to my parents. I remember saying something to my dad, and then specifically asking him, “I feel like I said that before and I’m repeating myself. I think maybe I have a concussion.” He said, “yeah you are repeating yourself, I think you might have a concussion.” He took me to the ER and they did a brain scan, and sure enough, I had a mild concussion. I don’t remember how long I sat out contact drills, but I definitely didn’t miss any games.

Making a catch in college, September 2009

My second known concussion was in the last game of my high school career. We played our rival in our second playoff game, whom we had beaten at home toward the beginning of the season. On defense I was playing free safety, and the quarterback scrambled down the middle of the field. I was out of position for the scramble and couldn’t deliver a solid tackle; instead, the quarterback, who was a big kid, delivered the force of the hit. Again I was a little shell shocked. I had stopped him short of the first down, but our defensive coordinator was worried they might fake punt it, so he had me line up near the goal line to field the punt—he wanted the defense on the field just in case they went for it. I told him during the timeout that I couldn’t do it, and he waved me off, insisting I’d be fine. They punted a high kick, and I remember seeing the ball come down to me, with gunners sprinting towards me in my peripheral vision. I remember thinking, “I need to wave to make a fair catch,” but my brain couldn’t make my body do it, and I didn’t make any fair catch signal. I was a sitting duck, hit immediately upon catching the ball, and I muffed the punt. I came off the field livid, because I had told my coach I couldn’t do it—I had never once even fielded punts in practice all year. I’m pretty sure I was concussed on back to back plays. But I stayed in and played the entire game, and didn’t think anything of it afterwards, too upset by our loss and elimination from the playoffs.

I have friends who played football professionally overseas, and I think they had a great time. I always thought about it, but was too far removed from that path when I moved to Cape Town and Beijing. Now I’m terrified to play even flag football, worried I’ll plant my foot on a cut and blow out my knee. I also wonder if I would let my future children play football. I’m not sure—the game is safer now, and we’re all more aware of the danger and risks regarding head trauma, but the danger is still there. Despite having so much fun playing football in high school and college, I don’t know if it’s worth it. Even now I may have some unforeseen long term health problems from my concussions nearly twenty years ago.

No Football Post School

After college I moved to South Africa, where there was no American football. I remember watching the 2012 49ers team go all the way to the Super Bowl, Skyping with my friends or family to watch. They would face their laptop toward the TV, and I would yell and cheer while making out the game on grainy footage through 3 screens.

After that Super Bowl loss, I stopped watching football regularly. Later that month I moved from Cape Town to Beijing, and was adapting to a lot of change in my life. I was living abroad and immersed in the culture there. It also coincided with the 49ers being pretty bad for the most part. But I also didn’t have a TV when I lived in South Africa or China. The game receded in importance in my life. I was exploring the world and becoming a man.

My Return to the Game

Then I started watching when I came back. I got sucked into the American football culture. Since I returned to California, I’ve spent a lot of time watching football games, reading articles about my team, and listening to podcasts for analysis and expert commentary. I’ve spent a lot of money on tickets to watch games in person.

Watching the 49ers - Packers game at Levi’s, September 2021

My hot wife knows football, and is a Green Bay Packers fan, our archenemies, second only to the Cowboys. I think it makes her even hotter. I still ask myself regularly: how did I marry a Packers fan? Perhaps I was convinced by her knowledge and true football fandom. Just this past week she was complaining how the Packers stopped running the ball, making Jordan Love shoulder all the load on offense when he’s still recovering from injury and no preseason.

Is there anything wrong with this? Not per se, but I don’t think I particularly want the person giving my eulogy to proclaim, “Trevor was a great football fan. He loved watching his beloved 49ers play.” Is that what I want said about my life? It’s fine to enjoy a hobby, but the marketing is so good for professional sports, it’s easy for casual fandom to slip into obsession and wasted time.

What have I learned?

Football can be a part of your life, but isn’t your whole life. I didn’t go pro. I’ve made zero money playing football. But it sure taught me a lot.

It’s fine to be a football fan. You can bond with friends while watching. It can build community camaraderie. But it can also be a waste of time and money. When you throw in fantasy football, and ESPN browsing, and podcasts, and watching the pregame shows, and the football games themselves, plus Sports Center, how much time are we talking? Everyone can live their life how they want if it’s not hurting anybody, but is that what we really want? Upon our deathbed, will we say, “man I really wish I watched more football.”

I’ll grant that you learn important lessons while playing the game. You learn that your one job matters and affects the entire whole. Your one block can prevent the trail player from making the tackle. You can spring a touchdown by clearing the field on a route, having never touched the ball or another player.

Football teaches you to think and work through extreme duress. It’s such an aggressive, fast game. You have to prepare for it. You can’t be actively thinking throughout a play, you have to train so it’s automatic on offense, pure instinct and reaction on defense. The heart comes into play in between plays. You have to want it bad. You’re often dead tired, in physical pain, and mentally and emotionally drained. Yet you need to focus. You process the next play call and must understand exactly what you have to do. You need to understand the situation of the game, down and distance and time left, personnel on the field, the score, how many timeouts your team has and how many your opponent has. And you only get 25 seconds. Because once the ball is snapped, the frenetic movement and chaos resumes. At the snap you run as fast as you can and exert as much strength as you can. All within about six seconds.

The 49ers are NFC Champions! January 2024

And nothing beats the roar of the crowd when you make a big play, the celebration with equally exhausted yet dedicated teammates. The feeling of accomplishment, the satisfaction that your success was directly due to the hard work you put in over hundreds of hours. I will always have fond memories of playing the game.

But all I do is watch now. And I’ve learned that it really is just a game, simply entertainment. It doesn’t really matter who wins. I like to joke that the 49ers winning or losing doesn’t affect anything, except maybe my home value. Maybe if they win a Super Bowl I can sell my condo for more money. But I will remain a lifelong 49er fan. Watching football is fun and it connects me to my childhood. I enjoy watching the game with family and friends, and I know these will be treasured memories when I’m an old man. But it will not become the center of my life. I enjoy the back and forth banter with my wife and her family, attending the occasional game, and camaraderie with friends while rooting for our team. I have fond memories of successful seasons and all the good times that were associated with memorable games.

Games can teach us a lot. But they are only games. Football has been a big part of my life, but it’s only the vehicle for entertainment and joy I experience with my tribe. I guess the biggest thing it’s taught me is this: there are rules in football as there are rules in life, and it’s important to work hard and have fun, but eventually it ends. We can derive as much meaning from it as we want, and that’s fully up to us. So go enjoy it.