Is There Football in Heaven? Touchdown Jesus and Friends

At Fox’s Barber shop, an old fashioned place with four chairs, lots of deep Southern drawls and country western softly playing in the background in Fort Worth, conversation revolves around a few things: college football, pro football, and high school football. During the offseason, the chatter covers football recruiting and the pro draft.

With the can o’ whup ass that the Christians of TCU hung on the Mormons of BYU out in the LDS motherland of Provo earlier this season, talk revolved around whose team God liked more, or if he/she/it gives a rat’s behind about it. 

Is there football in heaven? Every time you turn around some guy is genuflecting in the end zone after scoring a touchdown, crossing himself after an interception, or praising the heavens after a big sack.  Should they praise Allah if they throw teh bomb?

Everyone inside the shop generally sided on the affirmative of this philosophical debate, all concurring that there is football in heaven, and it’s played on real grass. Football in heaven also doesn't have dang instant replay messing up the works, it allows the old bump and run defense, it calls clipping what it is instead of “blocking behind the back,” it does not allow linemen to extend their arms, and it definitely has the old rules for intentional grounding. 

We’re sure that God’s an old school type.  Maybe we can name Vince Lombardi as the patron saint of contact sports, and make little medals of him that Italian people from the north can hang from their rear view mirrors.

The conversation, however, was a long, involved, and heated one. Last time I can remember such passionate feelings and strenuous vocalizing was when Joe Larry was pondering if he should put nekkid pictures of his soon to be ex-wife on the web.  He did.  Sure answered the question of if she was a real red head or not.

Anyways, the result is that the boys at Fox’s are proposing another college football league: the Big Halo, which recognizes the religious significance that several institutions have brought to the game, with the following charter members:

Notre Dame

With Touchdown Jesus and the aura and mystique that surround them, the Fightin’ Irish have been claiming positive divine intervention since the Gipper kicked the bucket. And what other program could Hollywood have used as a backdrop for a cornball movie like Rudy and get away with it with a straight face? Yep, the mother of all religious programs is also the most historically successful, although they don’t seem to have too many Irish guys actually playing anymore. Maybe we should rename them the fightin’ Apostates. We'll, at least this Kelly guy has Irish roots.

Boston College

For years the poor step brother to Notre Dame in the fight for athletes from the Roman Catholic high school programs across the country, BC has had some recent success by pointing out to these young men that they are in Boston while ND is in…Indiana. The boys from Boston's decision to join the ACC, a conference they have zero historical or geographical ties with, did come as a thunderbolt from above to the fellow Big East conference members that they stiffed. Well, God works in mysterious ways.

Texas Christian University

The Horned Frog, their mascot, is an ornery little amphibian that spits blood from its eye.  Seems like a miracle. It’ll be a bigger miracle if the powers that be initiated an actual playoff system, so that programs like TCU would have a shot.

Southern Methodist University

The Horned Frogs' old foe from the now defunct Southwest Conference, which they helped destroy with their rampant cheating and recruiting violations, SMU remains the only program that the NCAA has given a full death sentence to. Still suffering for their sinning ways, they did not have a winning season in an eternity, although they are limping into their first bowl since 1984 with a 7-5 record.

Baylor

Being Baptist, they don’t smoke, they don’t chew, and they don’t go with the girls that do. They also avoid making love standing up, since people might think they’re dancing.  The Bears also can’t play football worth a damn, as they are the perennial cellar dweller in the Big 12.

Northwestern

People forget, but the boys from Chicago used to be called the fightin’ Methodists back in the days of old 98, Tom Harmon. Belonging to the Big 10, otherwise known as the conference that cannot count (Umm…ya all got 11 teams), NU continues to hang in there with Ohio State, Michigan, and Penn State. Their favorite chant used to be “That's all right, that’s OK, we will be your boss someday,” but they have gone and ruined all that fun by actually being competitive the last decade.

Brigham Young University

What can you say about a place named after a guy who had 58 wives and produced something like 150 offspring? His family tree is freaking crabgrass but their football heritage is legit, as hall of fame QB Steve Young claims direct lineage.

Stanford University

Representing the atheists out there, the très chic California institution has not done much since they went PC and changed their name from the Indians to The Cardinal. Not “the Cardinals” but “The Cardinal”; they named themselves after a friggin' color! That just ain’t right.

We’ve also got a Pope Division, for all the 1-AA schools out there like St. John’s, Villanova, Fordham, Georgetown, etc. who really only want to play basketball but keep a football team on the field just because. 

Unfortunately we don’t have any examples of any other major religious groups out there who play football. It was agreed that if the Hindu’s field a team it will use a multifaceted offense, the Buddhists would feature a defense that would bend but not break, and the Muslims would be real involved in recruiting for all positions. 

Not too sure that there would be a Team Zion, given that one of the smallest books in the world is Great Jewish Athletes (Sandy Koufax, Hank Greenburg, and...um...hmm). 

Well who knows, since as the old song says “in heaven there is no beer, that’s why we drink it here,” and a heaven without beer would be kind of a dull place. We’re not sure if there’s football in heaven, but all agree that there is definitely soccer in hell. It goes on and on with the score 0 to 0, forever and ever (just like the World Cup).