Touchdown!

After days, nay weeks, of MLA-related navel gazing, four items about, yes, football.

1. I am pleased to report that not only did my current institution's football team win its bowl game, so did my alma mater's. Significantly (or not), my current institution beat my alma mater earlier in the season. (That there may be enough to pinpoint both institutions).
   
2. I am also vaguely pleased to report that, after a terrible start, my favorite NFL team finished 8-8. Still not what anyone had expected from the defending champs.
3. My father-in-law runs a football pool in which no money is ever at stake, but pride always is. We pick almost every game of the season (except Thursday, Friday, and Saturday games) against the spreads and simply keep a tally of who has done the best. We have a separate pool for the playoffs. It's a lot of hassle, I guess, with no tangible payoff, but right now, it pretty much constitutes the entirety of my relationship with my father-in-law, so it is what it is. Anyway, after finishing the regular season in 2nd place for 3 years running, I finally won this season--by a mere pick over my nearest competitor, but by 10 over my father-in-law.
4. Rambunctious likes to play his version of football, where there is some throwing and catching of the football, some kicking of extra points (which is completely unrelated to other scoring), and a lot of tackling, often when he has the ball. My favorite thing he does, though, is when he scores a touchdown (again, unrelated to anything else we're actually doing, he runs around the back hallway, dashes into the room, and touches the football to the ground, and triumphally announces "Touchdown!" for that literal feat he has just accomplished. Somehow, this is the glory of sport more than any of my other three items.