Fall as more than just a memory

Growing up, fall was the time of year that brought me the happiest moments in my youth and, with football season around the corner, autumn brings with it a sense of nostalgia.

My Saturday mornings were spent on the couch like most children, but instead of the prototypical G.I. Joe and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles cartoons, I was watching Florida State take on Miami, wide right as they called it or even the occasional wide left in 2000s. Saturday morning college football was the greatest show on earth.

My fondest recollection is waking up every Saturday at 8 a.m. to watch ESPN's Lee Corso and the College Football Live crew rant and rave about the hot, new quarterback or who was the team to beat for the week.

There was something about college football that caught my attention like no other sport. Even now, it trumps the NFL in all aspects.

But it was not the gridiron that drew me in at first. And no, it wasn't Nebraska's Eric Crouch taking it 95 yards to the house or even FSU's Peter Warrick running the "wild cat" before it ever went by that name.

It was spending time watching football with my mother that gave me the passion I have today for the sport.

She always made time for me in the fall and listened carefully as I honed my skills in college football trivia and other useless statistics.

I grew up in a what is now referred to as a "broken home", you know a single mom raising a few kids while the father is off doing whatever it is he does.

Like most families, we had our fair share of problems, and my mother and I argued for everything. But even with all the stress of raising three kids and working full-time, she made time for me every Saturday.

Granted I probably wasn't the only son who embraced football with his mother but in a world that stereotypes the father and son relationship along with sports, I felt exclusive.

My classmates would always talk about how they watched the big game with their dad and then they would ask me who I watched it with. I was shy at times, lying to them about watching games with my mother but then I realized that I had a special connection that no one had.

I remember watching game after game, and at times she would get up to go make lunch or wash clothes, but her interest was always in whatever game I was watching.

She never complained and always listened to everything her 11-year-old son had to say about whatever game we were watching. It was bonding, and for a kid who grew up with a father who was rarely in the picture, this was everything.

I did not know it then, but the time I spent with her gave me a sense of sports that most kids could never know. She has never been a sports fan but she always gave her two-cents in whatever was going on in the game and I still embrace that perspective in my own writing.

Even now at my ripened age of 24, my mother always asks me about the latest college football news or even how certain teams are doing just to give us something to talk about that does not incite an argument. I have even caught her watching Sport Center to keep up with current events just to give us a topic of conversation. She has always embraced my interest and because of that I am who I am, a sports writer.

Sal Guerrero may be reached at prospector@utep.edu.