American Football Party

Saturday at noon local time (6pm here in France), the Penn State Nittany Lions welcomed the Indiana Hoosiers to Beaver Stadium.

Jordan and I welcomed a newlywed couple and 8 teenage boys to our house.

As our church seeks to engage the youth (particularly 2 of our teammates' sons) in our community, Jordan and I have realized it's not really our thing.  We don't connect so well with French teenagers, but we're happy to share our food, culture, and home with them, allowing them to have a safe place to hang out together.  One teen from our church is particularly interested in American football, so we initiated an American Football Party and told him to invite his friends.

In order to get ready for game day, we made pepperoni rolls, buffalo chicken dip, and chocolate chip cookies, cut veggies and apples, opened several bags of chips and hummus and bottles of pop.

It was funny to observe the teens' hesitancy around the table at first, unsure of what they were about to eat.  But as soon as one kid said he liked something, everyone else crowded around for a taste.  Nothing but a few veggies were left in the end.

Jordan explained the rules of the game.  It's quite interesting to consider the game of football from the perspective of someone who has never ever seen a game; they didn't even know the goal of the game.  How do you score points?  When does the clock stop?  What's a legal tackle?  One kid was especially observant and asked a lot of good questions.  What's that one guy wearing on his arm?  Who calls the plays?  Jordan did a good job of explaining the basics with a little help from some of the teens for some of the vocabulary.

American football culture is seen in many TV shows and movies; I think our friends were surprised that many of the clichés of the football culture are actually true.  We explained the idea of tailgating; they were impressed by all of our PSU gear (socks, t-shirts, sweatshirts, blankets).  We celebrated a Penn State victory, however, unfortunately, did not teach them the "We Are... Penn State!" cheer.  Maybe next time.



PS.  Last week I also walked by a man in Aix-les-Bains wearing a Steelers t-shirt.  Here we go, Steelers!