Football Shouldn’t Be Called Football

I am a die hard, passionate fan of football. It is a great sport that challenges you both physically and mentally. I played the game for 10 years, mostly at the pop warner and high school level and it has given me so many great memories and life lessons. I always have multiple fantasy teams that have resulted in many championships. I watch my favorite team every single week. I don’t miss Sunday Night Football, or Monday Night Football. I watch as many games as possible because I just love the beauty of the game. Football pumps through my veins, it is my religion.

Although I love the game, one thing I never understood is why do we call football, football? It is such an odd name for a game that has very little foot usage. The origins of the game were closely related to futbol (soccer) and that is why the makers went with the name football. I have better name for America’s most popular sport and this name has been a nickname for a long time. The sport of football should be called gridiron.

There are a few reasons on why it should be called something other than football. The first and main reason is that there are only a few times in which a foot is primarily used. The game starts with a kick off but the foot touches the ball for less than a second. Punting is a big part of field position which is vital to winning a football game, but does that mean we should name the game off a play in which a team is essentially giving up the ball? Feet are used to kick field goals as well, which scores three points but again it is only a small part of the game. It just does not make sense for the name to be football. There is not enough of feet touching the ball to be called football. Soccer is futbol.

Another reason is that it just sounds better. I know some people might hear NGL, (National Gridiron League) or possibility AGL (American Gridiron League) and shake their heads but If you have ever played football you know how much of  a physical demand it has on one’s body. Now the definition of gridiron is “a field for football marked with regularly spaced lines”. The movie Gridiron Gang, starring Dwayne Johnson, is a great movie and the title screams football but what if it was called Football Gang? Doesn’t sound nearly as awesome now does it? Gridiron sounds tougher, and cooler.

As mentioned before, your body hurts for two to three days afterwards when you play football. It is a physical and painful sport. It requires a certain toughness and grit. In ancient Rome they didn’t call their biggest, most popular athletes sword fighters, no they were called gladiators. The word gladiator just sounds tough, physical, and powerful. Football deserves something like that and that is why the game of American Football should be called Gridiron.

Maybe in 30 years this will catch on and we will all be talking about the days in which we called it football but for now that is the name we have and no matter the name, football will always be the best sport in the world.