SL Essay
By Katie Cortese
On a Friday in the heated middle of last year’s Fantasy Football season, my husband read me a text from his longtime best friend. The gist: “If Katie wins this week, I will throw an epic fit.” Because I’m a girl, see. And boys don’t lose to girls where football is concerned, in actual or virtual realms.
Listening to the message, I knew three things for sure: (1) Despite impending natural disasters (i.e. the fringe of Hurricane Sandy, currently dousing my parents’ house in Massachusetts), injured running backs (there’s nothing a little ankle tape can’t fix, right?) and all the obvious pitfalls of possessing an x chromosome (if only I could stop squealing over Lance Moore’s spandex-covered butt!) — I would win; (2) The texter would blame his loss on bad luck, Mars in retrograde, or anything besides the fact that I had compared injury reports on RotoWorld to Michael Fabiano’s Start ‘Em/Sit ‘Em recommendations and carefully considered the week’s matchups, and; (3) My win would do nothing to change his notion that my team was inherently inferior to his, despite his losing record.
Considering that all of the above came true, what I can’t figure out is why the texter’s assumptions — and his condescension — still bothers me now, after the season has been over for months. And it does bother me. Like, a lot. I know it probably shouldn’t. I won the game in question, after all, and while I missed the playoffs by a handful of points, I know it wasn’t because I pee sitting down. Shouldn’t winning have been its own revenge?
First the facts: I knew I would win because Drew Brees was my quarterback, and Percy Harvin my star wide receiver. I knew I’d win because I believed Wes Welker would remain a key component of the Pats’ offense, despite Belichik’s recent (over)reliance on his two burly tight ends, Gronk and Hernandez. I knew I would win because that week my team was stronger than the texter’s team — let’s call him Spot, for confidentiality. And because I — though the only female team owner in the history of the National Tecate League — am just as capable of researching players, drafting well and making last minute, gut-shot decisions as the men whose teams I battled last season, despite my lack of a penis.
But even I know that I won that week in part because Lady Luck abandoned the texter’s side to stand by me, seasoning a simmering pot I’d already stocked with tasty ingredients. No matter the science behind one’s roster selection, or how painstakingly one studies the week’s matchups, or how reliable a player has proven himself over the first half of the season, or how many foolproof wikis crop up to guide owners to a win, Fantasy Football is like a low-stakes stock market. There’s probably a Moneyball-type formula that would produce the perfect team — barring natural disasters, freak injuries, and every other bump in the road — but a payout of $250 hasn’t motivated anyone I know to figure it out. That money would be useful to a grad student/adjunct household such as ours, but with as much enjoyment as I get out of playing, I want FF to be less like work than my actual job.
So, if eight months later I can admit that win was due, in some part at least, to luck, then why should I care about Spot singling out that loss as more catastrophic than the four he’d previously suffered against male buddies? If Brees hadn’t thrown a garbage touchdown to Jimmy Graham in the dwindling minutes of an unwinnable game, after all, I’d have faced a long climb back to playoff contention. But then, I’m the only player Spot has ever bothered to text my husband about regarding his fear of a loss. The four games his team failed to win before me were hard-fought battles against lifelong scholars of the game, whereas his loss to me was just embarrassing. Not just because I’m a newcomer to the league; simply because his logical mind was supposed to trump my emotional sensitivity; his brute strength my general fragility; his aggressive yang my yielding yin.
And yet, if I asked him point-blank to explain the implications of that text, I’m sure he would hotly deny any sexism. Conscious or accidental. Spot is an educated guy, progressive, liberal. He was a vocal major before switching to writing in college, not your average meathead (if such a thing exists). And I even like Spot. He’s a funny guy. Held my husband’s bachelor party, abided by Robby’s insistence on no strippers and invited the bachelorettes over when we tired of clubbing. He’s no monster of the dark ages from which certain Republican politicians seem to have hailed.
And yet: that text. That attitude belying adherence to some “natural” order in which men fight and women submit. Men hunt and women gather. Men yell and women whisper.
On some level, what interests me more than my inevitable win over Spot, and the offense I took to a comment he probably thought would never reach my ears, is the ferocious drive that’s overtaken me — the drive to win, yes, but also the drive to demonstrate my competency in an arena to which I freely admit I’m a Jody-come-lately. I grew up a baseball fan and still burn with pride every time I remember pointing out a Red Sox triple play to my grandfather, whose eyes were going bad, and who had to wait for the replay before he could exclaim with joy that I called the game better than the announcers at only eight years old. Wasn’t I some kind of genius?
Nonno’s joy aside, I’m no kind of genius, but especially concerning football, a sport in which my education began during the courtship period during which my now-husband manfully overcame his aversion for the Patriots (he’s an Eagles fan, and anyone who knows their NFL history will remember that team’s brutal loss in Superbowl XXXIX when the Pats became a dynasty) in order to initiate me into what is essentially his religion.
It took a while to warm to it, but learning the intricacies of the game of football — both in its current, safety-conscious incarnation, and by soaking up its storied past — has become a true passion. I like thinking about its social implications (gladiators, catharsis) in the same way I like thinking about the subtle social messages embedded in zombie movies (fear of disease and what comes after death), which is not distinct from the dominant interest in my life, the reading, writing, interpreting and championing of literature. Every football game has a narrative that is all the more exciting for the choose-your-own-adventure quality of the coaches and players living it. It’s unscripted and packed with real danger; the ultimate reality television experience. The meticulous record-keeping of its high priests and priestesses (and yes, a few women have finally penetrated that inner sanctum) belies a respect for history bordering on obsession. In a world where legislators seek to diminish the role of sociology, history, English and other humanities subjects on college campuses, the NFL’s emphasis on comparing stars of the past to the present’s rising talent is nothing less than Homeric tribute, and — dare I say it — heroic.
Still, I know I should be cautious with my affections. It’s no secret the NFL is trying hard to woo the ladies. To them, “female fans” are synonymous with “untapped market” right along with the millions of consumers in foreign countries where soccer holds captive the popular imagination. It’s not for convenience or a scheduling conflict that the Rams held “home field advantage” against the Patriots in London last season, after all. That the NFL has committed to promote Breast Cancer awareness is a good thing, but not a fully altruistic one. The pink hats and wrist-warmers and cleats and towels are bright enough to catch the eye of both sexes in a crowded sports bar. And if we don’t want to bid on the once-worn pink duds (proceeds benefiting the American Cancer Society’s Community Health Advocates National Grants for Empowerment program, or CHANGE), another tab on the same website has slim-fitting, contoured, adjusted-for-boobs jerseys for sale at only $94.99, designer leather purses emblazoned with our team’s name and colors (a steal at $795.00), as well as an array of cheese plates and chip bowls to help us domestic cheerleaders throw the most team-spirited “homegate” party ever.
I should be insulted by that pandering (okay, the cheese plates get to me). But I’m in too deep to quit. And while I really am grateful to Spot for being a loyal friend to my husband — it hasn’t escaped my notice that his team slogan is: “F@#K you, pussy!” It’s probably a reference from a news story I missed in the off season, or a comment on Robert Kraft (the owner of the Patriots, a division rival of Spot’s favorite team, the Miami Dolphins) whose picture sits next to the slogan, or an inside joke with the other 10 guys in the league so ancient and codified that it’s not worth getting upset over. But it’s also a challenge, and I took it personally.
Maybe then, embracing Fantasy Football is just an extension of the same hunger that pushes me to learn, write and do things that force me from my comfort zone, no different from the yoga balance postures I attempt despite the likelihood that my body will not comply. I’m not a natural athlete and the only place I’ve been able to maintain a handstand is the hall in my house where I can walk up one wall to prop myself against its opposite. It’s cheating, I guess, but I think of it as training my shoulders to support my weight, and as a way of acclimating to the strange sensation of hovering upside-down above hard ground. One day, I will join the men and women in my classes who kick up easily against the wall or freestyle in space, biceps taut and quivering. I’ll have to get over my fear of success first, though. What happens if I get up and can’t keep myself from crashing back down? Worse, what happens when I achieve the posture and must set a new, terrifying goal before which I’ll feel incompetent all over again?
Next season, I’m no one’s favorite to win it all. I spent most of last season in dead center — sixth place (though second in points) — and the win against Spot that I thought of as pivotal didn’t even bump me up one spot in the rankings. I’m okay with all of that. Next season will bring a slate of new ball games to slug out, and in Fantasy, as in life, I’m an incurable optimist. When the season starts up again, I’m planning to keep my team in contention however I can — monitoring players’ health stats, working the waiver wire, proposing trades, lurking the blogs, watching games and learning all the while.
That Sunday in October, I wanted my win to show Spot that gender, at least as far as Fantasy Football prowess goes, is immaterial. Both his and mine. But wouldn’t it have been easy to dismiss his text as childish and silly if I didn’t fear on some level it was true? As an adult human being, I have to recognize that I’m responsible for my own emotions, and as Eleanor Roosevelt said many years ago, “No one can make you feel inferior without your consent.” I’m setting my sights on next year’s championship, but more importantly, I’m trying to move past the need to prove myself to Spot, or to my more vocal, more familiar, more damning critic: myself.
Katie Cortese received her MFA from Arizona State University and recently finished her doctorate at Florida State. Her work has recently appeared in Gulf Coast, Third Coast, New Madrid, Crab Orchard Review,Cimarron Review, The Tusculum Review and elsewhere.