My mother was a complete sports fanatic when I was growing up.  That was somewhat unusual for a woman raising kids in the Texas Panhandle in the 50s and 60s.  I’m not talking about a fanatic for just our own school teams. Mother was beyond crazy for major league baseball (she was a “national league” purist), professional basketball (she made Celtics fans of all of us), and college and professional football (Darrell Royal was king, but Bear Bryant and Woody Hayes weren’t far behind).

She could also tell you all the hockey greats and their stats, even though she probably never went to a hockey game. I later married an ex-professional hockey player who was blown away by how much a cotton farmer’s wife in rural Texas knew about his game. Sports consumed my mother. And she made sure my sisters and I knew all about “Little Mo” Connolly and Babe Zaharias.

Sports consumed my mother.

Daddy liked sports too, but not to the extent she did.  I lived in one of those households where Daddy would come home at night and bitch at Mother for watching sports all day long.  He was a hard-working farmer but his passion was playing the piano. And unfortunately his piano and our TV were in the same room.  So they sparred every night for soundtrack rights in our house.

Read More: What I Inherited From My Mother Was Not at All What I Expected

Playing the Game

Our small town was very remote with only 300 people, so there wasn’t much for kids to do but play sports. My two sisters and I grew up tomboys. My older sister was tall and a natural, and she could beat most of the boys in any sport they would allow her play with them.  My younger sister could out-cuss all of them, especially on the baseball field. I was the “sissy” of the three. I loved playing basketball, volleyball and tennis, but was also a cheerleader. (Cheerleaders only performed at football games.)

It always surprises me when people think it’s odd that I’m a woman who loves football.

My older sister went on to win several national championships in college basketball and was captain of the USA Olympic National basketball team in the early 70s.  She later coached college basketball for a decade or more. My younger sister became a golf pro. I went to college on basketball scholarship but didn’t make much of a mark, although I did win state four years in a row in high school–in tennis. And both my sisters and I have played a lot of golf over the years. So it only makes sense that we are still avid sports watchers. I’m probably the biggest fanatic, just like Mother.

I Can’t Resist

I ended up with a career in the arts, far from the sports world, but it always surprises me when people think it’s odd that I’m a woman who loves football. I will watch just about any game, no matter who is playing, and regardless of whether I have a dog in the hunt.  And I’m quick to cheer for my biggest rivals.  I don’t “hate” rivals, I admire them, and always want them to win after they beat me.  I would have to say my “desert island sporting event” (that ONE yearly event I would choose if I was exiled to a desert island for the rest of my life and could only watch one) would be Ryder Cup. March Madness a close second. But I would be horribly sad and devastated to be deprived of the College Football National Championship or the Super Bowl.  Not to mention other sports.  (Yes, even curling.)

So where do you separate the women who LIKE sports and women who LOVE them?

And I’m always particularly curious and intrigued by other women who love football. Especially those who didn’t grow up like I did. Football is a tough game, a man’s game. It’s brutal. If I were a mother, I’m not sure I would want my son to play football. But I can’t walk into a bar or a restaurant with a football game playing on a TV screen and not automatically veer over to it. Just to check out who’s playing, and the score. Even men get mad at me for doing that. Or for sitting at a bar with them and watching a game overhead more closely than I’m paying attention to them. I just can’t resist it. I’ve had other women tell me they “learned” to watch football because of a boyfriend or a husband. It allows them to spend more time together. And I’m sure a lot of mothers or grandmothers of football players likely remain fans of the game.

Sideline Strategy

As the decades go by we see more and more women reporters (usually very attractive women) on the sidelines at games, grabbing the coaches or star players at halftime for quick sound bytes. I’m sure that’s a network strategy, putting good-looking women in that spot. (Think Greg Popovich or Nick Saban. Honestly, would they really bark at a woman? Or ignore her?) We also see more and more women sitting at TV sports desks and on various shows on all the sports channels. Most of them seem to know a lot about the game of football, and love it. I often wonder when watching these TV women–when did she first become interested in this sport?  Did she play sports herself? Or just watch them? Or was this merely her best job offer after graduating college with a broadcast journalism degree?

It really doesn’t matter. From what I have witnessed–most women these days like and watch at least one sport. Or have a respect for it. But when it comes to football, women either love it or hate it. There’s no in-between. So where do you separate the women who like sports and women who love them? Football. It’s the good, the bad and the ugly. But they dig it. Show me a woman who loves football, and I’ll show you a woman who could probably run for President. Dog-eat-dog worlds. Gig ‘em, Hook ‘em, Sooie Pig! Tiger Bait, Hotty Toddy, Roll Tide and Fork ‘em! All football-loving women know instinctively–it ain’t how you get knocked down, it’s how you get up.

Read More: Hear Her Sports: Sharing the Stories of Female Athletes of All Ages

A version of this story was originally published in February 2022. 

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Anne Rapp is a filmmaker, writer, and script supervisor who has worked on more than 60 feature films, beginning with Tender Mercies in 1981 and ending with the HBO TV series “Westworld.” She began writing short stories which led to a job writing for Robert Altman who directed two of her original screenplays, Cookie’s Fortune and Dr. T and the Women and a television episode written for the ABC series “Gun” entitled “All the President’s Women.” Her own documentary, Horton Foote: The Road to Home, will be released this year.