There it was the Fall of 2016. The World Series had been over for a while. Baseball wouldn't resume until April. Meanwhile, I noticed that football fans seemed to be the same sort of fanatics as baseball fans, maybe more so. I decided to find out what was so special about football. This episode is the story of my beginning down the road of understanding football. I have far to go.

I started out by watching a few games on TV, studying the quarterback who received the ball at the line of scrimmage. That's what they call the line-up of the two teams facing each other at the spot the ball had been dropped at the end of the previous play.

I learned that the quarterback either ran with the ball or threw it to someone who did. It seemed that the role of the rest of the team was to protect the quarterback. The objective of the opposing team was to kill the quarterback or at least seriously injure him. The team with the ball had four chances to advance the ball ten yards toward the opposing team's goal post. If they didn't make a touchdown, they had the option of trying to kick the ball over that goalpost, thus earning three points. I still don't know what a safety is.

Football became more interesting for me when I learned that my pastor, Brian Weible, was an avid University of Michigan fan. My appreciation of the Michigan State Spartans grew by leaps and bounds. Sunday mornings at church I delighted in reminding him that Michigan State had won another game. I would tell him how sorry I was that his Wolverines were performing so poorly. It was a reflection of their poor coaching, I opined.

Then the Saturday came when both University of Michigan and Michigan State were playing rival teams. When Pastor Brian reported the score of the Spartans, I told him he was mistaken, that his Wolverines had lost by a score of nine to ten. He insisted I was wrong. I knew I was right. “If you're wrong, what will you give me?” he asked. I told him I would give him a kind word. He grinned. Pastor Brian knew he had me.

I found out later in the day that he was right. I was locking into the losing side of a challenge. What could I do? In a brilliant flash, it came to me. I tore a corner from the Sunday News-Sentinal front page. With my trusty ball-point pen, I wrote the word “kind” in very small print on the scrap of paper.

The following Wednesday at Bible Study, I admitted I was wrong. I asked Pastor Brian to take a seat and I would fulfill my obligation. He sat down with an expectant smile on his face. I slowly and carefully placed the snippet of paper on the table before him. “I said I would give you a kind word. Here it is.” I pointed to the center of the whisp of paper. “See, 'kind'. Now it's your word.”

My pastor hadn't expected anything like that. When he asked if he could keep it, I responded, ”Of course. Everyone deserves a kind word.” Every now and then he will open his duct-taped Bible and show me that he still has it. As I said, everyone deserves a kind word.