Bromance

I think my husband is involved in a “bromance.” I’m not jealous or anything. Actually, it makes me laugh.

This bromance, as they say, is with his assistant midget football coach, Brian. It’s not a new bromance; it carries over year to year and goes into high gear once the summer comes to a close.

About a month or two before football season starts, the phone calls begin. Once practice starts, I don’t even need caller ID. About 8:30pm after practice, just as we sit down for supper, the phone rings. We pick it up and say, “Hello Brian.” Same thing happens about 9:30 Sunday mornings before church and the boys’ football games. I know it’s going to be a long conversation if Rick takes the phone into the garage. They’ve got serious plays to consider. How are they going to win the corner today? Who can “man up” and shut down the hole if one opens up in the line? Will it be Carlos O’Kelleys or Las Margaritas on Friday night?

“Bromance” is a relatively new term, recently validated by Misters Merriam and Webster, that describes the complicated love and affection (fist bumps, I’m sure) shared by two straight males. You hear it now and again on television and around town. It’s one of those slang terms turned mainstream that everyone thinks they are cool to utter.

Rick is a man’s man. He has lots of buddies that he hangs out with, doing all sorts of man things, like fishing, camping, carpentry, and golfing (back when he had more time to do it). Actually, Rick has had a “bromance” with one of his partners at his office for many, many years. There are so many inside jokes that even I am not privy to, and that is just fine. The guys love to play poker, garden, fish, use their smokers, and use salty language. Our kids are the same age, so they have lots to talk about regarding children and wives (although Rick’s wife never causes him any stress, at all, so I’m sure that is a short, happy conversation.) When they worked downtown, they would go on walks after lunch on the UNL campus to get ideas for their home landscaping. How bromantic.

Now Brian, it makes me laugh really hard to use his name and the word bromance in the same sentence. You would too if you ever saw him. Brian played football in high school and college and, although he is much shorter than Rick, Brian could probably kick Rick’s butt from here to the stadium and back. He’s an intense, bald football and baseball coach who loves to make the boys take another lap if they aren’t working hard enough at practice. (Really, he enjoys making those boys work.) Mandy and I laughed so hard at practice the other day when Brian took one of the players aside to tell him that boys don’t cry in football. Those bruises and scars you get in football, well girls dig football injuries. Well that, and the uniforms.

The boys try to include us wives. Tammy and I, we arrange to eat out about once a week so we can drink our margaritas while the boys talk about hard-hitting linemen, fast-footed backs, and teenage daughters. We both clearly struggle with that last one. Tammy’s oldest teenage daughter is a senior cheerleader; her younger one is a twin and turns 13 soon. She and Mandy enjoy scoping the boys their age at games and practices. However Brian says Mandy has to quit getting out of the car at football practice. Evidently 12- and 13-year-old boys are easily distracted, even the ones without ADHD. Really? Is this new information? Doesn’t he know that is the whole idea?

Sometimes I feel a little like a football widow during the fall when my husband spends the time on the phone figuring positions and plays, and the rest of his time buried in his three-ring binder playbooks and his computer spreadsheets. Saturday mornings are chalk talks, and after early church, Sundays are a day of midget football. The days start about 9:30am if Rick’s team plays the first 10:30 game and can last until 6pm, if Joe’s game is the last game at 4:45. Rick and Brian use the entire day to make the rounds, scouting other D teams and talking to other coaches. And now that they have coached together for several years, Rick and Brian especially love watching the boys they trained a few years ago take what they’ve learned and pound the other teams. Assurity A team is undefeated so far this season, making the day so much more fun.

But I’m just fine with Rick’s football fixation. We each have our own activities in our lives that make us who we are. I love Rick because he is such a good coach and because he can’t do anything halfway. If he coaches football, he is going to do it right and spend as much free time devoted to his team as he can. I’m glad he has Brian to make that part of coaching happier. That he has someone to talk over the trials and mistakes and to celebrate the improvements and wins. And he has someone to do diamond pushups with at practice when the boys think the coaches need to pay for the two penalties they cost the team at the last game for having too many players out on the field. Whoops. Evidently 12- and 13-year-old boys have good memories in spite of the ADHD.

I’m here hanging in the background, washing the uniforms and coaching shirts, filling all the water bottles and making sure everyone gets to the game with their pads, hats, and whistles. I’ll sit on the sideline like a good woman should (tongue in cheek). Just as long as he takes me out to eat every once in a while and remembers my birthday this month, he is safe. I’m glad to cheer him on. Because diamond pushups, well, that’s one activity we will never share.

We Are the Champions by Queen