“I like the Pimpiriripimpim, from the Phamplampam University …”, is the most beautiful shout of triumph that my tired ears have not heard. Going to see an American party with my dad is for me one of the incarnations of happiness.
I am talking about my beloved Pumas Cu, the golden helmet heroes and blue jacket that represent the UNAM in the senior league season of American collegial football in Mexico. (There are some fools who when they speak of the American use the “football” anglicism to distinguish themselves from soccer soccer, what idiocy. In Spanish it is said soccer and to shut up).
I love the American, what else to say. I went to the University Olympic Stadium for the first time in my mother’s womb. In Cu’s parking lot I learned to ride a bicycle. There I tried for the first time the tacos of stew, the Coca-Cola and the Milanese cakes. I take Pumas from the University City in the heart, in those times of the first act of my life represented by the condors of Cu. What the rebelly shouts – yes, the porra puma of soccer football, they endure – of the golden skin and the blue blood well can be applied to us, my family and me.
The ring of the American team of Cu is the Yarda 50 Egregia, which celebrates each score of Pumas with the Goya of rigor and the university scream of our team: “The line, the Core, the Jafs and the Full, for the glory of my team the Spirit will speak. Mexico, Pumas, University”. Each TouchDown is accompanied by a brave and elegant trumpeter that touches the march of the saints. Absolute tropicalization, because the Mexican tochos like this we tell the positions: quarterback among us is the “core”, very beautiful because it sounds like a heart.
Yes, the American runs in my blood like my DNA. The hobby is an inheritance. My father, a child of the fifties, was for the first time the university Olympic as soon as he opened. With five years he saw his first American game. Although his companions went to the Poli – the original classic of Mexican sport is the Polytechnic against UNAM; Party that to date continues to generate passion and is one of the few amateur sport events that attract thousands of fans every year, many of them who go every season exclusively to that game – he fell in love with the golden helmets that shone in the distance in the field. An instant love, the most sincere, is the one who conquers us from children. That absurd hobby for our sports, our teams: we won and lose with them as if they paid us to throw porras. We think represented by the eleven of the tribe (Na), Juan Villoro Dixit. There is some cavernario in all this.
My father learned to read this in hand. The American results always followed, at that time a tremendously popular sport. He went to Cu at eleven years of age. He says, without exaggeration, that he went to study at UNAM not to be a lawyer but to look for the position of Core de los Pumas. A fracture and practical sense withdrew from the court … It is a saying, my father acknowledges that it would never have been as good as Joaquín Castillo and Hilario Canseco, his contemporaries, two historical cores, generational heroes.
In which I cried. Of the joy of victory, of the courage to lose. Few loves I have that size. If I could marry an object, without a doubt the university Olympic would be my husband. This year the season began ominous: we lost at home against the Aztecs of the University of the Americas Puebla due to stupid errors, those that hurt because they are self -inflicted violence. It will be a Laaarga season like a Canoa ride. Another say: Canoas are at least relaxing.
Yes, damn and sensual Pumas Cu, they have all my being. Autumn arrives and it’s like being a girl again. My father no longer wants to go to the stadium, he says that Cu is already great. I would like to take it in a wheelchair, but again its pragmatism is opposed: where we put the chair at home, how much it comes out, that the cold, that the rain. The fans do not die, but fans also age.
We follow all the matches on the YouTube channel of the sports journalist Aarón Soriano, one of the few who continues to disseminate our sport. Yes, although the classic is filled, in regular matches the coverage is poor. They do not even dedicate a notita in the newspapers or the news. However, the League survives with the love of a few fools like us.
The matter changes in Monterrey, where the teams of the wild sheep of the Tec de Monterrey (the “Borregios”) and the UANL tigers arouse intense emotions and receive greater interest from local media. They are the most dominant teams in the league, the trophy usually stays there. In the north the classic is between those two teams: our poly-unam is smaller than a size five to my obese butt.
But let’s talk about something else. Autumn brings me other memories: the World Baseball Series and the NFL season, which together with millions of followers on Mexican television, in our country, according to media such as ESPN and record, at least 20 million faithful follow the NFL. Each year thousands of jerseys are sold in Mexico, there are specialized stores throughout the American paraphernalia, sports restaurants are filled to see the Super Bowl. There are fans who collect all the memorabilia of their team and come together every weekend to see their team at friends or at a bar. Fan of Steelers, Cowboys, Patriots or Packers: there is a whole dynasty among fans. If you grew up in the seventies, you are Steeler, it does not fail. If you became a fan in this century, I bet your team are the New England Patriots.
The most present jersey in pop culture, which is seen above all in rap videos, is usually that of the core, such as Patrick Mahomes or Jalen Hurts, or, in the glorious era of the PATS, the 12 of Tom Brady. Other players manage to place themselves among the favorites, such as the closed wing of Kansas City Chiefs, Travis Kelce (Taylor Swift’s boyfriend, for greater reference).
In my case, a girl of the nineties, I have two sweater: that of Steve Young of my San Francisco 49ers, and that of Peyton Manning in her era with the colts of Indianapolis. Why am I going to Niners, why do I have a Manning shirt? First question: I loved gold and red colors since I was a child, for me a reason as legitimate as anyone for children who approach sport. Good seasons from San Francisco and a Super Bowl touched me. Every year I hope my team gives me a winning season and a place in the playoffs. Already asking for a Super Bowl seems to me a lot of vanity, we have stayed close, the team has grown in recent seasons and has stars in several positions. We will see.
Of the Manning sweater the reason is more to bring the opposite. He was the only player who could fight the glorious pair of the Tom Brady Pats and Coach Bill Belchick. More or less: the truth is that in the fair between both teams, the PATS always took the victory. However Peyton Manning’s dominance on his team was something worth seeing. I knew all the strategies, all lures. Although he always had elite coaches, Manning seemed to play independently, a court artist.
The NFL transports me to a suburban childhood store in which everything was NFL and Halloween. It was a super, so in my memory the NFL smells like freshly baked, pizza hut and great coal burgers that were put outside. Good and old days.
