Life After Football Season: Tips for Survival

The end of football season is quite a few things for quite a few people. For some, it’s the perfect transition into basketball season. For others, they may focus their attention to upcoming spring training in baseball. For folks who are open for a little bit of anything, they may get into some hockey, soccer, or NASCAR. However, there are some fans that, when football season ends, go into hiding. They’re pretty much done for, unless anything football-related is in the cards.

Let’s all be honest here. There are only so many mock drafts, only so much NFL Network, and only so many times you can hear about the possibility of a work stoppage, before you finally lose your damn mind. The real draft isn’t until the fourth week in April, mini-camps aren’t until May, and training camp isn’t until mid-July. It wouldn’t make much sense to sit alone in the stands, while the rest of us are finding joy and excitement through alternative avenues of sport. Today on ETSF, we’re gonna offer you some tips to make through this time. Our hope is you can find a way to have your sports-jones filled, even if it’s not coming through football.

1. Embrace the Greatness that is College Basketball – Where else do you have Big Monday, Super Tuesday, and big-time conference championship matchups? Right now, every single college basketball game matters, and since it’s getting closer to March Madness, there’s no better time to get involved. Shoot, you’ll probably do a bracket anyway, so why not take a look at what you’re picking? For folks who give it a shot, they end up falling in love.

2. NBA All-Star Weekend and Beyond – The gripes people have about the NBA season being too long do have some validity to them. Hell, I love the NBA, and I’m not a fan of it in early-October, but after going through a lockout in 1999, I’ve learned to live with the fact that pro basketball is pretty damn long. The good news for folks who decide to watch now is that it’s right around the time for the All-Star break. You’ll be able to partake in all of the festivities, and also see how a real All-Star weekend works, and not that garbage-ass mirage that calls itself The Pro Bowl. Plus, the games mean much more now.

3. Become a Renaissance Fan – Admittedly, this is the part where I’m attempting to become better at, but if you don’t find joy in basketball, give hockey a shot. There’s also tennis, NASCAR, and golf. Well, I’ll take golf out of there, but hockey, tennis, and NASCAR deserve an opportunity. Besides, it’s not like you have anything else to do. There’s also soccer, which Ed is a huge fan of. To be totally honest, soccer fans are the liveliest fans in the world, which may be hard to believe, but give it a shot, and you just may experience a thrill from the atmosphere of the sport, even if you don’t know what the hell is happening on the field.

4. Give Your Better Half the Time They Sacrificed for the Past Six Months – Now if you’re totally against any of these suggestions we’ve offered, then remove yourself from sports completely, and become a better partner to your old man, old lady, or whoever you’re kickin’ it with. Start taking your behind back to church on Sundays, because you know you weren’t going to the late service, and if you weren’t going early, then you weren’t there at all. Go ahead, and take your better half out on Saturday afternoons, since there’s no more college football, or take ‘em out for a night on the town. Besides, you can’t lie and tell them you’re watching football with me right now. After all these suggestions I’ve offered up, don’t look for me to lie for you. You’re on your own ‘til football starts back up.


This was at Wild Wings, where I watched the game, as the clock hit zero. Wow. What a year...

Be easy.
-K. Masenda
http://www.edthesportsfan.com/