Dear College Football,

Come home, baby. I miss you.

It’s been four long months since I cradled you tenderly in my arms like one of Darren McFadden’s illegitimate children and we drank PBR in a can at 10am like it was champagne served in crystal on a moonlit night. Baby, ain’t nothing mattered since you walked out in January. I was mad at first, after you built me for two months, promising me something special on January 8, and then walking out the door with my heart  leaving me with another unwatchable beating. I was mad then, but only for a moment. Baby, you know I can’t live without you.

Why’d you have to go? We were meant for each other. You told me you loved the smell of pork products in the morning, diesel fumes mixed with fresh cut grass, and watching white boys do the worm across a portable dance floor. We both love to travel to foreign places, so I took you to Madison, Austin, Ann Arbor, LA, and beautiful South Bend. You said yes when I asked you if a thong that said "endzone" was hot, fat men in skin tight Tennessee T-shirts were funny, and if you hated Ohio State. I did everything I could to make you happy, all that money on tickets for games I didn’t want to see, I ignored friends and family, I watched Rutgers UConn on a Thursday just because you were there, I believed you when you told me Michigan was a national title contender even though deep down I thought you were full of it, I even put up you toyin’ with that doofus from Hawaii. I did all those things for you.

Don’t get me wrong, baby, you ain’t easy on a man. You thought you were playin’ around last year when you kicked me in the jewels that first weekend in September. Baby, that whudn’t right. I tried to block you, but you went right on through anyway and crushed my boyz.  I ain’t never been right since.

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The next weekend you got drunk and started quacking at me, and then ran me over with your car. It hurt my pride, but baby, you maybe up for it. The next eight weeks were amazing, until you started foolin’ around with that sweatervest wearin’ foo in Columbus.

Why you gotta be that way? You know that stuff riles me up and gets me in a fightin’ mood. You can’t go chasin’ every vest you see, Baby. Sure he looks good up front, but don’t you want a man with some finishing power? Yeah. That’s right. You want a man that finds that endzone in January, ifyaknowwhadImsayin? That’s why you came back for one more Saturday of hot lovin in Orlando, the City of Love. I know nothing gets you hotter than torching a Florida DB on a "Go" route. And, baby, we made that happen all night long.

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But the next thing I knew, you were gone. Something about it’s not me, it’s you. Something about you’ll be gone till August.

Baby, I’m willing to chalk this nonsense up to passion. When I saw you this spring, I knew I couldn’t live without you. There you were, spread out in all your glory. Everywhere you went you drew a crowd. Come back baby.

I know you saw me with other sports. Basketball. Hockey. Laotian Roulette. But they don’t hold a candle to your flame, baby. They were just distractions to keep me from realizing the pain of losing you. But look at me now, baby. I’m leaner, meaner, and able to see my toes. No more nautilus for me.  I’m a pure Olympic style beast. Faster, quicker, more explosive, if you know what I mean. Baby you may look at me as the wrong quarterback for your system, but I’ll study your play book and watch your film ‘till you’re second nature. 

I know you got something going on that keeps you away from me for so long. But if I can only have you for a couple months out of the year, I’ll make due. I’ll pretend you’re in the Navy, or somethin’ like that, far a-sea, in a foreign land trackin’ down Osama. But when you get home on shore leave baby, I expect you to come home and sink my battleship.

Damn baby.

Call me. Email me. Send me a letter. Let me know you’re comin’ home.

XOXOXO,

Maize n Brew