While I struggle to get back into school after Thanksgiving break, I can’t help but reminisce about my fabulous weekend. Expensive airfare to the west coast kept me from going home, but a friendly invitation from my buddy John landed me in the Hoosier state (at his aunt and uncle’s house) for Turkey day for the second straight year.

We lounged around on comfortable couches, stuffed ourselves with turkey, pumpkin pie and stuffing, made the 45-minute journey to Purdue to watch the Boilermakers demolish Loyola Marymount of Chicago and sipped on a variety of brewskies, glad to finally be 21.

It was a great weekend, but you know what topped it off? I thought I would never say this, but: watching a ton of football.

Football was never my cup of tea. Growing up, soccer, basketball and baseball dominated my life. I never gave football the time of day. Watching college or professional football on TV always bored me. The stop-and-go, stagnant play never appealed to me like the free-flowing movement and skill of soccer, the true “football.”

But this year has been different.

I don’t know if it was Oregon’s near-magical run to the BCS Championship, which ended so disappointingly that I was left loathing the name Brady Leaf, or a maturity that has taught me to appreciate all sports for their specialized skill and athletic prowess, but I have actually become interested in football this year.

There was no one turning point, but I think the effects of living in a football-crazed part of the nation have finally caught up to me. My home city of Portland, OR, doesn’t have a central team, so people live vicariously through others. The newspaper covers the Seattle Seahawks as if they were our own, and people love keeping tabs on their alma mater of either Oregon or Oregon State. But besides this, and the general high school football scene, there is not the football-crazed atmosphere there is out here. It’s is a nice change.

Here, you have the home-state pride of a top tier college program in Ohio State, competing for a national championship year in and year out. Not too far away, two professional football teams occupy the TVs and radios week in and week out. You head east and there are die-hard Steelers fans (most notably our student body president) and to the west you have the Colts, Bears and Packers. To the north, the Lions.

This is not an editorial showing off my geographical knowledge of NFL teams, but the close proximity draws in all sorts of fans where you can’t go far without seeing a bumper sticker, a sweatshirt or a beanie with a hometown favorite. This pride of a football team is what is missing from Portland, and it has taken me a while to see it.

Last weekend I watched the most games in one span than I probably have in all of last year. The mix of college and pro games, watching Brett Favre shine, Missouri dominate and Colt Brennan attempt to make a name for himself in a weak conference, whetted my appetite for more. When one game ended, another followed shortly afterwards. It was glorious. Relaxation reached a new high.

Not only was I able to sit through numerous games, but I developed an appreciation for the skill and physical tenacity football players possess. Quick dashing runs, bullet-like passes that threaded the needle between two defenders, sacks and bone-crunching hits that sent players sprawling out-of-bounds were just a few of the magical plays.

It is not like I was just introduced to football, but I finally have discovered a likeable tolerance for it where in the past little connected to the sport would have peaked my interest.

I don’t expect this enjoyment for football to only be a Thanksgiving event. With the amazing BCS run this year in college football, I have been intrigued since the beginning weeks and will be watching in January for the championship.

It is amazing how perspectives change over time. It makes me wonder; if a soccer player can enjoy football, can the opposite be possible? It never hurts to expand your horizons.