I have yet to blog...

about something very near and dear to my heart...football.

There is nothing better than a fall afternoon donning a sweatshirt of your choice, as long as it says Cowboys or UCLA on it, and watching a battle of titans on the gridiron.

I'm getting watery eyes just thinking about it.

My love for the game goes back many many years. Dad knocking the wind out of me trying to teach me to tackle, spraining all ten of my fingers at one point or another...it seems I always had a splint on at least one of my fingers between 1st and 8th grades...as a matter of fact I'm pretty sure I was a lefty until I sprained my left index finger in the first grade and switched to righty and, well, the rest is history...going to the bathroom right before weigh in so you could make the 83 lb weight limit. Yep. Good times.

My love for all things UCLA started young. We would go to the Schultz's house every Thanksgiving. He was a Trojan fan. Ugh. And we were of course UCLA fans thanks to Dad. We would play a football game every year. If it was us against them, we would have killed them. There were six of us including dad and all they had was a daughter and a son. Julie, I think, and David...David when he ate an apple would eat the whole thing. The whole freakin thing. Core and all. That's his claim to fame...a football player he wasn't.

I think the renaissance of all things UCLA came in 1995 when the bball team won the National Championship. After that, the yearly UCLA football game came to be, Pfaff Pfest. Don't get me wrong, UCLA was the team all along. I received a No. 5 UCLA jersey from my college roommates Mike and Mike. So, the passion for the Bruins was there it just seemed to intensify as the years rolled on.

I was a Rams fan growing up; Nolan Cromwell, Jack Youngblood, Jack Snow, Vince Ferragamo, Jim Youngblood, Lawrence McCutcheon. I was distraught when they lost the Super Bowl in 1980 to the Steelers. But when they moved to St Louis, I moved to the Cowboys.

America's Team.

The Troy Aikman years were the best years of my life, football wise. After all, he is a Bruin who led the Cowboys to 3 Super Bowl victories. It doesn't get any better than that.

If I had to choose, I would watch the Bruins over the Cowboys. I love college football. I wake up early on Saturdays because I can't sleep in preparation for the game. My stomach starts to churn several hours before kickoff. If we win, I rewatch the game on Tivo, the greatest. invention. ever., to analyze blocking schemes and offensive and defensive play calling. Sometimes I'm up until 2:30 am re-watching a game I have already seen. Tragic.

I tried to get Kelly involved in the hype to no avail. She's too far gone. Madison is very happy when the Bruins and Cowboys win and sad if they lose. She doesn't like to sit and watch the games though. The outcome is good enough for her. Ian will sit with me and watch periodically shouting out "Go Cowboys!". Which is great but at the time we were watching the Jaguars Steelers game. The boy is a trooper though. Chompy still isn't quite ready. She likes her UCLA ball and plays with it often but somehow I get the feeling she is just humoring me.

Pfaff Pfest is at the University of Washington this year. Nov 13-16. I can't wait. Cold weather. Bruins. Family. Hot tub. Booze. Tobacco. Eyes watering again. We have been to some great venues, The Big House in Michigan, Alabama, Oklahoma, Texas, Notre Dame and of course the Rose Bowl or Mecca if you will. I have a prayer mat in my office that faces west and I pray to it everyday at 8:47.

Some of you may know that time as 13 to 9.