From Ditz to Legit: How I Became a Fake Football Fan in 5 Easy Steps {and you can too!}

Every September, I become the picture-perfect football fan—game day gear {Go Broncos! check}, Pinterest worthy appetizers {check}, an adept football language that Rosetta Stone would envy {check}.  I dutifully bid adieu to Donald Draper and my other Mad Men and relinquish all TV rights to a movement that is much bigger than me: College GameDay, Monday Night Football, Thursday night football, Friday night football, Saturday, Sunday…they all blur together into one big scrimmage of tight ends (what girl could hardly complain?).

Confession #1: I don’t love football, but I am a darn good pretender.

To see me whooping for that dramatic Hail Mary or booing for that disgraceful fumble, you would hardly know that I am a charlatan, a wolf in sheep’s clothes.  You would hardly notice that while it appears I’m counting yards, I’m actually counting the number of other things I’d rather be doing.  And you would never know that only a few years ago, my knowledge of football would equate to the punch-line of a dumb blonde joke.

Why the elaborate ruse?  Well, when you meet the man of your dreams, and the man of your dreams happens to be a huge football fan, love will make you do crazy things—including convert to Footballism.

So, if like me, you are sick of being outside the huddle when it comes to witty sports banter, sick of mistaking an interception for an interference, and sick of John Madden references that are way over your head, it is time to do something about it!

It is time to become a fake football fan.

Simply follow these five easy steps and you’ll go from ditz to legit in time for the next big game.

Step 1: Choosing a team

This just may be one of the most important life decisions you make.  There’s no going back—once a fan, always a fan.  In football, there’s no room for fence-sitters or wishy-washers.  Choose a team and stick to it.  Some factors to consider while making this life-altering decision:

• Go with your alma mater  With pre-determined allegiance and pride, going with your beloved college is the safest bet.  Your alma mater stinks?  Adopt your significant other’s, your boss’s, or Channing Tatum’s (Alabama).
• Consider teams in your home state.  Choosing a local team makes for a more seamless transition to fake football fan-hood.  Hopeless transient?  If you love Snoop Dogg as much as I do, you’ll love his team too (go Pittsburgh Steelers!).
• Did your middle school boyfriend have a favorite team?  If on more than one occasion, you wore his ratty Cowboys jacket, congratulations, you can claim them as your new team!

Step 2: Dress the part.

            A hunter would never enter the woods in a three-piece suit.  Camoflage is the name of the game, and when it comes to misleading the masses, you must look like the devoted football fan you are feigning to be.  Invest in a few team shirts, a beanie and most definitely a classy team koozie (quite possibly the best $4.95 you will ever spend).

Step 3: Learn the terminology, dude.

It can be easy to drown in a sea of illegal shifts and pass patterns (and yes, I am Googling these terms as we speak).  But once you know the vocabulary, or at least have access to them, you become less of an outsider and more of an insider.

Confession #2: There’s an app for that, and I’m not afraid to use it.

Seriously, for $.99, you can get a football terms app that will be your lifesaving guide when it comes to navigating crucial game days.  Consider it your football-English dictionary.  It is amazing what you can learn while pretending to check your email.

Step 4: Make great football food and you’re a shoo-in.

People will overlook a lot of flaws if you can cook.  ‘Nuff said.  Win their hearts with this Texas Mission salsa, my favorite fruit salsa, or this Tailgate Chili that has 5-stars and over 3,000 reviews!

Step 5: Watch and observe little lemming.

            Many critical skills, like knitting, hotwiring a car, and becoming a mime can be learned through observation (it’s all there on YouTube).  Lucky for you, the same goes with football spectatorship.  You can learn a lot about the game just by watching others watch the game.  When in doubt about that controversial penalty flag, first observe how others react before uttering any brash expletives, guffaws, or joyous hurrahs.  In other words, go with the crowd on this one, even if that means following the other lemmings over the cliff.

Confession #3: I once yelled, “NICE BLITZ!” only to have everyone within a five bleacher radius turn and look at me like I was a complete idiot.  Lesson learned: know what a blitz is before your shout about it.

Well, that should be it.  Five easy steps to surviving a football driven society and fooling your fiancé, your boss, your next-door neighbor, and Channing Tatum into thinking you’re a raging, out-of-your-mind, #1 devoted fan.  What team are you cheering for again?  Just checking.