By Ed McGranahan.

By Ed McGranahan

Football is only a game. One I learned to love as a kid.

I remember having pajama shirt that said “All-American” with the number 77 on it. That was Red Grange’s number. My father was a football fan, and he told me about Red Grange, the Galloping Ghost, and Frankie Albert and Otto Graham and Mr. Inside and Mr. Outside.

Dad and a couple of my uncles would catch a college game about once a year. One season they went to Purdue, where one of the uncles played during World War II. Another time they went to a Navy game at Pittsburgh. Both uncles served in the Navy during the war. Dad brought home a huge blue and gold Navy pennant, and it hung on a wall in my bedroom for years.

Before I entered school, Santa Claus brought me a red helmet with a white stripe, a red jersey with white and blue stripes, leather shoulder pads and a ball that never seemed to hold air for long. Dad played on the sandlots as a kid but never on an organized team because he didn’t care for coaches. He knew I would probably never play either, but with that helmet and pads I was the scourge of Lincoln Heights until age 10.

The local high school team was Big Red, named for the horse Man O’ War, and dad had begun taking me to games when I was in grade school. We saw a lot of Big Red games over the years. Chilly Friday nights with men dressed in heavy wool coats with the odor of sweat and cigarette smoke mingling with the distinct fumes of booze in flasks. And I learned to hate Massillon and Canton McKinley and Weirton.

As a kid I was a Browns fan. Dad liked the Steelers, which made for a few interesting discussions because Pittsburgh was pretty ordinary. When I was 13, we both embraced the Wheeling Ironmen. The Ironmen played in the wide-open United Football League and — later — the Continental League, usually on Sunday evenings. Mom wasn’t pleased because I had school the next day, but I loved the high scoring and saw a game official die on the field.

When my parents wouldn’t allow me to join the Harding Junior High team in eighth grade, I cried because I didn’t understand it wouldn’t have ended well. So I served as a manager. That pretty much sucked.

That same season Harry Wilson was the Ohio back of the year at Big Red. I followed his career to Nebraska, where he was honorable mention All-American, but in 1964 I became a Notre Dame fan. I can’t remember why, precisely, but I remained loyal through college and into my first newspaper job.

I didn’t care much for Ohio State because Woody didn’t like to pass, which seemed narrow minded and unwise because Jerry Rhome and Howard Twilley were doing marvelous things at Tulsa. Hayes was the first college coach I met, during an assignment in Columbus, then five months later I covered Clemson for the first time, at Georgia.

I have since covered games at venues all over the country, from the smallest high schools to the Super Bowl. Dad was always with me in spirit even though there were times he couldn’t understand what possessed me to follow this career path.

Truth be told, he is the reason I am eager to see the Chick-fil-A Bowl game with LSU,  why I continue to love the game and why I am proud to have passed that energy forward to my son and daughter.

As I think of them and him this Christmas, and No. 77 and the leather shoulder pads and the Wheeling Ironmen, it occurred to me there are families in Connecticut who will never have the opportunity to share the love of something as inconsequential as a football game with their children.

And I know my family and I are blessed.

Merry Christmas!