top 10 ways to know that football is here

Are you ready for some football? Here are the top 10 ways to know it has officially arrived!

1. the bass drum corps from the high school - located more than a couple miles from your house - rattles your windows every morning during marching band practice - and then breaks crystal and knocks picture frames off the wall every other Friday night at home games;

2. you find out where your neighbors moved from or went to college as flags are attached to car windows or hung from front porches (or both) every Saturday morning - of note: you will know when their favorite team has lost a big game when the flag comes down immediately after the game;

3. no more curling tournaments; no more bocci specials; no more cricket highlights from the New Zealand versus Barbados match are shown on ESPN 2 through 25;

4. coaches at every level of football stand before a row of microphones and talk about how tough their opening game against a team that hasn't won a game in three years is going to be...with a straight face;

5. grown men who shouldn't take off their shirts in public take of their shirts in public with a big block letter painted on their chest;

6. television ratings for major league baseball plummet - and no one outside New York City and Boston and whoever lives in one of the cities that has a shot of playing them cares;

7. even the most long suffering of fans - i.e. Cincinnati Bengals fans (the team I grew up watching) - believe this year is going to finally be different for their team (until after the first game is a blowout loss);

8. the skinny kid who majors (or plans to major) in atomic and molecular astrophysics puts on a Tiger outfit and becomes a rock star to the home fans;

9. fantasy draft parties are held in corporate meeting rooms after work hours with a group of eleven people who bring enough pages of notes to fill War and Peace - and a twelfth person who plans to draft the kicker from his alma mater in the first round;

10. fans who have never played a down of football get into heated - and well reasoned - arguments over the merits of cover two versus bump and run; three-four versus four-three; i-formation versus the spread; punting or going for it; 60's Packers versus 80's 49ers versus the 21st Century Patriots; and the current head coach versus the coach who got fired from someone else's team last year.

Are you ready for some football?