Jenny and Erin

Have you ever wondered what the deal is with North American football fans and their dogged devotion to their team? Do you puzzle over their crazy outfits, custom painted automobiles, carefully applied body paint and sincere belief that congregating weekly to watch the games, while eating, drinking and yelling will actually impact the outcome? I urge you to suspend any preconceived notions as we examine football fans.

Some people say these fans are crazy. I offer an alternative explanation - as some of these fans are my relatives - rather than being crazy, maybe they are actually a group of Americans unknowingly involved in ancient and mysterious pagan rituals. (Now that I say this, I don’t know if they would rather be labeled crazy or practicing pagans!) This may seem like an outlandish statement, and I, like you, may have dismissively laughed at these words a year ago. However, after examining mounting evidence (via Jenny), I have started wondering.

So, I ask, are pagan traditions finding their way back into our culture? Are old gods and goddesses rising up from the depth of our beings and culture? Is it possible to be a practicing pagan and not even know it? If so, one of the easiest ways to do so would be in a large group of similarly minded people whom cloak their practices. For example, let’s examine an North American football game:

• Special attire. Specialized clothing and very culturally specific clothing is worn to football events. This is akin to wearing one’s Sunday best, only a little stranger. How else can you explain this?;
• Standard time and place of worship. Most games are on Sundays (coincidence? I think not) and attendance is usually at a stadium, bar or one’s living room;
• Ritualized behaviors and songs. There definately is ritualized behavior by football fans. Can you think of any other reason your husband would wear the same socks, refusing to wash them, for every single game? Further, most fans know at least a few songs to cheer on “their” team;
• Dieties to worship and revere. It is fair to say the athletes are considered pretty close to gods by many;
• Consumption of magic food and drink. Mass consumption of beer, brats and burgers definately count here. The beer especially, putting one in an alternate state;
• Pilgrimages. It is common place and very well respected to take cross country trips to watch “their” deities fight yours; and
• True Believers. Die hard fans, as opposed to fair weather fans, definately are the more respected crowd.

In summary, typical to many pagan activities, everyone before the ritual “worship”, if you will, wears special clothings and consumes mind altering beverages immediately before the game. By immediate, I am talking about right at their cars in the parking lot. Many “fans” even arrive before the sunrise to start this drinking. And they typically eat a little cow meat to get them ready. So I ask you, sports fanatics or members of an ever growing cult - the cult of the cow?

I urge you to have a few laughs, and some scratch you head moments, by reading some other explorations of Pagan America, including definitions of magic food and drink and examples of cow (and bull) worship. You can find all of this in the Pagan American Series.

This entry was posted in Pagan America on Wednesday, August 15th, 2007 by Erin Dietrich. You can follow responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.