"Football: a form of team game played in North America with an oval ball on a field marked out as a gridiron."

A very basic definition of a game that means more than just eleven men on the field trying to score seven points.

Football in North America, the United States mainly, has been something that has brought people together since the early 1900s. College football, NFL football, it has a long and eventful history.

Football for most is not merely just a game, but something to bring people together or something to beat your annoying friend who gloats about their team on fantasy for the first time in years. It can bring torn or destroyed communities together. It can calm a storm between two people, hell it can even give a town or city or community hope for something better. New Orleans is a prime example of this. One year after Hurricane Katrina, the city finally could re-open the Super Dome and won the first game. It gave hope to the hurt community of New Orleans. It gave them hope that there is a light at the end of the tunnel. It brought them together.

You see this in more than just the NFL, in colleges and universities, as well as high schools, across the country. My high school, Bonny Eagle in a little town in southern Maine, came together on Friday nights. No matter what was going on – if you were in the band, just getting back from your own cross country meet or field hockey game – you ended up watching it. Though I was not a water girl or a cheerleader, I tried to go to every single game so I could watch our hometown heroes. Football for me isn't just a game you can watch Thursday through Monday. For me, it's a passion.

I have been a fan of the game my whole life, not that my family gave me much of a choice. But it was the best thing I could ever have been introduced to. My family, mostly my mom's side, are Packer fans... Granted my great uncle played under Lombardi in the 1960's. I have been a New York Giants fan since I was just a little girl, my dad and I ended up watching a game they were playing and I liked the uniforms. That was all it took.

Since then, my knowledge and passion for it grows with me. I love talking stats, history of teams and rivalries and listening to the post game interviews. I love spending my weekends watching football. I have also been criticized because I am a female who loves the game. I have heard that I am just "trying too hard to fit in with the boys," that I, "trying too hard to impress boys so they can like me" or "my dad is the only reason why I know anything" and countless others. Never in my life has my dad influenced me in football. By trade, he is a San Francisco fan, but also follows the Chargers and the Falcons. I don't have the deep-seated passion I do to "impress boys," that's just the saddest thing I've ever heard. To me, it makes me legitimately happy. Even if it's only on for a few months, it's the most wonderful time of the year.

Even if people don't understand the love, or maybe the team(s) you are a fan of aren't having their best season (I call these rebuilding years), football is more than just a game. To me, football is a passion.