Fall is just beginning; the leaves are changing colors, the night is coming earlier. For a student, it means back to the tough school schedule and the end of summer fun. However, there is one great thing that comes with the season of fall: the season of football.

Some tailgate, others cancel all Sunday activities, but one thing is the same: football fans of America all celebrate Football Sundays, Monday Nights, and occasional Saturdays and Thursdays. There are 17 consecutive weeks of this national holiday. I love it. I love the air, I love the atmosphere, I love the plays, the hits, the cheerleaders, the defense, the highlights, fantasy teams, and favorite teams. I love the National Football League.

Although I love playing every sport and watching every sport live, staying interested in a professional team entirely by watching televised games can only be accomplished in the NFL. Now some ask, “Why football? Why not baseball or basketball or soccer?” This is a question everyone can stop asking. It shouldn’t require an answer, but I’ll give you one just one last time.

Let’s start with baseball. Baseball is boring. Don’t get me wrong, I like being at baseball games and I like the Yankees, but watching baseball on TV is like watching the same episode of Antiques Road Show over and over and over again. If you got season tickets or know someone on the team, baseball is okay, but let’s get serious, there are so many steroids in the MLB who knows if your watching talent or a couple drugged up muscle heads swinging a toothpick? Finally, 162 games are just too many. I can’t stay interested for longer than a hour, how am I supposed to take three hours out of 162 times in my life, sometimes twice in the same day, to watch this garbage? I would rather let Michael Jackson baby-sit my kids.

Basketball has so much potential; there are so many great offensive plays in the NBA. Yeah, its pretty fun to watch, until you see a team of five guys that get paid millions of dollars to just stick out their hands, reach for the ball and call it defense. It just makes you angry and anyone that has ever played basketball knows it. I’ve played since I was just a little kid and defense is all about blood, sweat and hard work. I never got paid to play, and maybe that’s what it takes to remember to take pride in the work you put into your game.

Soccer. Need I say more? I watched my high school’s soccer team face many opponents and they worked hard, possibly as hard as any athlete can. However, watching it on TV with a thick accent talking a mile-a-minute trying to give me the play by play just isn’t a good time for me. The worst part about soccer is the how no one cares about it; many might not even know soccer has a major league. You’ll never hear about the Chicago Fire’s 4-1 loss to FC Dallas (actually happened), because no one cares enough! Call it sad, call it a shame, I call it no fun.

But football, ah football. There is never a dull moment; there is a hit every play and who knows where it will come from. It pumps you up to see a quarterback or runningback get buried like a casket after a funeral. It pumps you up to see a quarterback throw the ball like a rocket and have it caught in the end zone and held onto as the receiver gets nailed like a shingle on a roof. You don’t sit on the edge of your seat when you’re watching a game with a fan of the opposing team; you stand up, scream for every touchdown and boo for every bad play.

So to all my football fans, my “cheesehead”-wearing, “terrible towel”-waving, “Viking helmet”-owning fellow football fans: on Saturday night, when you’re living your normal lives counting the hours and minutes till Sunday at one (time of the first football game), when you watch your clock at work or school just waiting till it strikes time to go home and get everything done before nine (Monday Night Football), remember that you are part of the most exciting, fan-friendly sport in America. And when you are with your friends and you feel your blood pressure start to rise with your heart rate as you stand in front of the TV with a cold one and a bowl of Nutzels, thank god for this great sport. Then turn to one of your friends and yell/ask him like you mean it, “Are you ready for some football?!” Cause this is what we live for.