Rocket Football Rocks?

    Continuing my search for the real American, I have begun attending the events of a pee-wee or "rocket" football team...sporadically. It was picture day the first time I shadowed Justin, an 11yr old kicker and wide receiver in a boys tackle football league run by the local school district.
    Pulling the van into the overflowing parking lot of a nearby park I brought my litany of questions: "What position do you play? Wide Receiver...is that the one who the quarterback passes the ball to?" Its picture day so all the young players are decked out in full pads and their red jeresyed best. Black leather gloves and the American Football classic: skin tight black knee-pants rounding out the look for that delicate balance between pansy-primo-ballerino and macho meat head.A look I hope to understand before the season is over.
    Sitting on the picnic bench doing my best to observe with out interfering with my environment--a feat all true Anthropologists do their best to achieve--I come to the conclusion that 11yr old boys are STILL as mean as they were when I was that age. A burgeoning suspicion that I in my tight gray skinny jeans, silk blouse, funky platinum streaks, and too trendy white fauz ray-bans was attracting too much attention and thus altering the dynamic among prepubescent players and fading-glory dads alike, I retreated to the distance of a park bench under the guise of practicing my guitar to continue my study as the boys began their self-directed and serious warm up. Never mind the fact that few of the boys actually succeeded in touching their toes and their stretching form was less then par. (a comical number of them wobbling and falling to the ground while attempting to stand one footed while stretching their right-quad) each boy tackled the task of warm ups with a surprising and admirable determination and focus. The general impression an untutored observer such as myself receives is: this is NOT a game.
    Impure athlete and female that I am however, I quickly became bored, sweaty in the surprisingly hot sun, uncomfortable with the stares and general impression that I just don't fit in; snuck up to the team photos snapped a few sneaky pics on both my own 35mm manual focus and the disposable point and shoot I had been sent with under orders to take pics so my mom could escape buying the professional copies, kissed my little brother on the forehead and left.
    Education conclusion: football, while fulfilling for some, is not my American Identity.