Fall is finally upon us. The cool chill in the air, the changing of the leaves — sure, none of that happens in Cayman, but it must be happening somewhere, and it can only mean one thing: Football season is here!
I am a big football fan. When I was younger I was a big sports fan generally; I avidly followed baseball, football and basketball (college and pro). But as I got older, my passion for baseball and basketball dropped, and now I’m at the point where I might only watch a few Yankees games a year, and the occasional college basketball game during March Madness. Sad, right? But my passion for football has not dimmed, and I am still a big fan.
My team is the New York Jets. For the last six years that I lived in New York, I was a season ticket holder, and would go to all the games with my good friend Adam. We’d tailgate with other friends in the parking lot, and it was always a good time. On days when the Jets were away, my friends and I would often go to sports bars to watch all the games on tv and follow the performance of the players on our fantasy football teams. One of the things I was most sad about when leaving New York was that I’d be missing out on football Sundays, both going to the games live and watching them on tv with friends.
Down in Cayman, football has been somewhat difficult to follow. Last season (during my first few months on the island), I don’t think I watched more than 6 or 7 games all season (back in New York I’d watch most of the 14 games played every week). The problem is that I work on weekends, and so I was never able to see the games on Sunday afternoons. Most of the games I was able to see were the Sunday night and Monday night games, and even those were sometimes difficult to stay awake for, since I go to sleep early and wake up early down here.
In order to aviod this problem this season, I’ve changed my days off. I now work a half-day on Sunday. This means that I get out of work at 12:30 Cayman time, or 1:30 east coast time. By the time I can get to a sports bar (or get home), I’ve missed the first hour of the 1pm games. But at least I get to see some of them, and I’m out of work to watch the 4pm games in their entirety.
During the first two weeks of the season I’ve watched football at a sports bar called Legends. It is a nice place with lots of tvs, and they show all the games. The big downfall of this bar, though, is the crowd. There are very few Americans on the island. Most of the ex-pats here are Canadian, English, South African, or European. And with the exception of the Canadians, most of them do not understand american football. This past Sunday, I spent the majority of the Jets/Patriots game (which I was very into and which was a frustrating game for Jets fans) explaining the rules of football to an English friend of mine. He actually picked it up pretty well, but still, it’s not the same as watching the game in a room full of screaming Jets fans (although there were a few Jets fans representing).
Andrea and I are very happy with our island lifestyle, but I have to admit that one of the things I really look forward to when we eventually move back to the United States is to be able to more actively follow football, to be able to go to games live, and watch in a bar filled with die-hard fans. Until then, though, I’ll have to make due with only having to work half a day on Sunday, and to spend the other half listening to English idiots complain that rugby is a better sport than football and wonder why they don’t take tea-time during the game like in Cricket. Ahh, the joys of island life….