On a med school interview, the interviewer asked me who do you think should be the starting quarterback next year for the Giants? There had been some controversy that year. Phil Sims had gotten hurt and Scott Brunner had replaced him. Brunner was the second string quarterback that had stepped in during the playoffs and had been quite successful. I knew all this. I was a fan. My father (and mother) bled big blue. I chose Phil Simms. It wasn’t because he was more handsome. It was because I valued loyalty and I believed he had more skill.
I have only been to two NFL games. The first one was a Jets game about 20 years ago. I remember suffocating in a sea of testosterone. Despite the fact that I was genuinely interested, the men that surrounded me eyed me suspiciously. They doubted my devotion.
Last night I went to my second NFL game. It was in Atlanta at the Georgia dome. The Falcons played the Packers. The first thing that struck me was how sophisticated tailgating had become. Large flat screen TVs abounded. And the grilled meats included much more than hamburgers and hot dogs. There were amazing lounge chairs and tables and pop up tents. People drank Jack and coke premixed in a can. This was not your father’s tailgate. This was a pop-up outdoor catering facility. This was someone’s job.
But aside from the tailgating differences of 20 years ago, there was a more significant one: women. There were women everywhere. And they were not just hanging on to husbands or boyfriends. They were independent fans. These women were ready for some football.
My daughter Sam and 11 other girlfriends play fantasy football. They are very very very serious about it. She and her 11 friends are consumed by statistics and trades and scores. Samantha even enters ESPN fantasy football chats. You would think the NFL paid her and her friends to do research. And when Sam and her friends go on Sunday afternoons to the local bar to watch the games, they dismiss all male advances. Hanging out at the bar is not a recreational activity-- it is business. It is business conducted with beer in the company of her opponents—i.e. her girlfriends. The competition is fierce. Friendships can be broken over a missed pass or an injured player.
So when I told Sam that her father, sister and I had tickets to the Falcon-Packer game, she was envious. And she asked what side I was sitting on. We were sitting on Green Bay’s. And then she gave me my instructions: I was to route for the Green Bay kicker—it was no consequence who actually won or lost the game. Sam needed Mason Crosby to kick as many points as possible—I needed to route for field goals not touchdowns. The surrounding crowd thought I was crazy--I cheered for Green Bay until they got into field goal range--then I cheered on Atlanta's defense to stop the drive. And God bless Mason--he came through—3 field goals and an extra point. Samantha had a winning week. She beat out her friend Amanda. Her statistical predictions came true.
And evidently choosing Phil Simms during my interview was the wrong answer for the interviewer. There is no MD after my name as you can plainly see. But Scott Brunner would have led the Giants down the wrong path. History proved Phil Simms to be the better quarterback just as Med school proved to be the wrong road for me too. Simms led the Giants to 2 Superbowl victories-- I raised 3 independent successful women—I call that a 3 monumental victories—victories I may not have attained if I had the distraction of MD after my name. Choosing Phil Simms was the right answer after all. Getting it wrong meant getting it right. And I have no regrets. And neither does Sam—or at least not for this week.
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