Why This?

In my family it's definitely the wife who wears the pants when it comes to football. It's the reason we have a big cable-connected flat screen where there used to be none. It's the reason her phone has ESPN and NFL apps where my phone has none. Even so, in the course of the past 6, almost 7, years, she has slowly sucked me into the fold.  Now it's me sitting up late on a Saturday night to watch the final quarters of the west coast college game. Now it's me thinking about sports menus with features like ribs, chips, dips, sliders and dogs.

With that as a background I ask the audience to acknowledge, yes, Michael P. Schmidt does realize female football fans do exist, are real, and are legitimate. Thank you.

Having established my credential, now let me ask: What's up with all the female sports announcers these days?? Not the sidelines types who've been around a while, although that's weird too. Mostly I'm referring to the women populating the Sports Center desk. They strike me as out of place. Like having your mother make the food and pass the trays at your bachelor party--I'm sure she may have wanted to, and she may have had a legitimate interest, but it just would not have worked.

I'm not a big sports guy but it does seem to me that football is all about men beating their chests, flexing their muscles, and clobbering the other guy so that they can ultimately, well, get the girl, whether literally or figuratively. Somehow having women turn up in the male bastion of football, or, for that matter, whatever other man-sports are qeued up, it just strikes me as too weird. It's just too p.c., like modifying Cookie Monster's diet to include fruit and veggies. I mean, really. Remember that scene in the movie Steel Magnolias where Olympia Dukakis reports from inside the men's locker room? I'd be embarrassed as hell and calling myself out here as a sexist bastard in all this if it weren't for one thing: My wife agrees. And in an informal poll of sports geek women in the OR, they agree as well. It's weird.

I know all this didn't just happen in the last 2 months and I'm not sure what it's all about-- and I'm not really sure I even give a rip. But, whatever the motive, there is some real entertainment value to it: Having a woman commentator sitting along side the football or NASCAR guy announcers really seems to irritate the hell out of those men. It's just below the surface, but I see it. You gotta love a good competition!