I know one thing I won’t be doing on Sunday afternoon or evening.  I will not be speaking to my son, Josh.  Why?  Because Josh is a HUGE fan of the New England Patriots, and our local football team is playing in its first Super Bowl since 2008.  (The less said about the 2008 game, the better.)  All Josh’s Sunday energy will be tied up with willing the Patriots to victory, and a phone call from his mother will not be welcome.

Boston is a sports town, but it hasn’t always been the host of winning teams.  Until, suddenly, it was.  Now there’s an annual expectation that some team in some league should be winning.  Not the Red Sox this year?  The Bruins will take their place in local sports fans’ hearts.  Hopes are riding high for the Patriots.

Fletcher, being an international community, includes many people with limited knowledge of American football.  Into that information gap step second-year students Chris and Charlie, who have kindly offered a one-time seminar on the game.  Inviting their fellow students to attend (via the Social List, of course), they said:

Every year in September, Americans go absolutely crazy.

We reconstruct our social lives so that we have nothing to do on the weekends and can spend hours in front of the TV.  Our mental sanity is based on the success and/or failure of 18 and 19-year-old amateurs or 35-year-old professionals with reconstructed knees, hips, and ankles, and potential brain injuries.  We spend billions of dollars to sit outside in the freezing cold or the blistering heat, only to get really, really angry.

Why do we do this?  Because we love our football.  Our American football.  Our gridiron.  This Sunday, the crazy will come to an insane peak.  Over 100 million Americans will watch three hours of Super Bowl action between the New England Patriots and the New York Giants.

If you’re interested in learning about the game of football, then join us for an explanation of the sport, the industry, and the passion.  In addition to being useful this Sunday, it might serve you in the future — around the water cooler, on a date, or even at a conference.  We Americans love our sports (especially football) and often end up talking about it, probably more often than we should.

For those interested in the international relations side of American football, two players in the Super Bowl have noteworthy backgrounds.  Mathias Kiwanuka, a player for the New York Giants, is the grandson of the first Prime Minister of Uganda, Benedicto Kiwanuka.  And Sebastian Vollmer, a player for the New England Patriots, is the only German in the National Football League.

Trust Fletcher students to find the international angle!  With the community educated, and my fingers crossed for Josh and all Boston sports nuts, we’re counting down to the game.  Go Pats!