hello
and welcome to the grand journey of the most expansive evolutionary tree in sport, barring the possible exception of "go fast from here to there". the revered name of football is reserved throughout the world for the sport which each culture believes is fundamental to itself and (usually) easy to understand. but why is there more than one? we will see. it starts at the conception of having fun aside from just drawing your everyday activities.
ancient times: grunk's game
enter grunk. for generations that span backwards into oral history, the grunk family have been proud farmers of food, much more advanced and civilized than the ancients. after all, they had bothered to chase after wild beasts for hours to get a meal or searched long and hard for the few fruits not forbidden to life. but by grunk's day, they had it all figured out. for a sacrifice of the small stones within these fruits buried in the ground instead of eaten, his people would be rewarded by the earth with fruit that did not have to be searched for. and by trapping beasts, their meat could essentially be stored for later. truly grunk lived a life of luxury.
but in reality, this introduced a terrifying sensation entirely new to humanity: boredom. grunk had some days when he had performed enough such sacrifices that he would be fed for some time, leaving him no duty to perform. he would have to think of something else to do lest he face the all-consuming existential crisis of suddenly having no purpose. and so he picked up a nearby rock. "but," he thought, "throwing rocks is not fun enough. i already do it to perform other labors. i must invent some new activity for the rock that is entirely original." ahead of him he saw two trees spaced apart just right, and what creativity had built up inside him sprung to life.
as he attempted to push the rock between the trees without using his hands, because that would be work, it took him a few days to become skillful at performing this feat. but after then, he realized it had become far too easy. he would need someone to become his rival and attempt to stop him from completing his task for reasons that did not immediately impact their survival. enter grunk's friend, bunk.
as grunk was explaining why he had been transporting rocks without his hands to bunk and what he wanted bunk to do, he thought of a way to up the stakes. "bunk," he explained, "since you are new to the game, i will allow you the use of your hands to make your job easier." he had actually done this to one-up bunk and spice up this rivalry he intended to create, but the tradition has stuck. in the very first instance of grunk's new game, bunk successfully picked up the rock before it traveled between the trees. but he had also bumped slightly into grunk, and since he was doing things for fun anyways he dramatized this by splaying himself onto the ground and uttering so great a cry that all around would surely look to what they were doing. this had ensured the spread of this new game, but then everyone remembered that they did have some farming to do after all the next morning and went home to think on all these bold new ideas.
and time passed. a lot.
1800?: football (traditional)
grunk's game spread throughout the world through the efforts of his friends and their descendants and evolved massively over time into the world's most popular sport. many have tried to overtake it, but none have truly achieved the paradoxical combination of boredom and ubiquity to ensure that this football stands the test of time as the ubiquitous. i don't even have to describe it to you because there's over a 30% chance you are listed as a fan. and so we must instead move on to the variants that have arisen over time.
1823: the return of hands
shortly afterward, in fact, a bold new invention would schism the world of football forever. the legendary hero or villain by the name of william webb ellis dared to carry the football with his hands into the goal. the supporters of the old game certainly couldn't stand for this cardinal sin of the sport at all, and banished him to the land of rugby forevermore. and yet he uttered that, though his followers would enter an age of diaspora and spread throughout the world, they would all one day free themselves from the rule of the british crown and make their versions of football just as if not more profitable than the original. and across the atlantic ocean, his words were about to be put into motion...
anyway, this one was called rugby. the lofty prophecy that begun the game was represented by a lofted goal with a required minimum height for scoring but no maximum, and the ability to score multiple points at once. it took off well in the home territory of the original game, but suffered its own schism. classic class conflict has shattered this game into its own variations, and it was overshadowed by its successors...
1859: football (violent)
australian rules football actually arose first, doubling the massive goal of rugby while dropping the height restrictions altogether and expanding their field beyond recognition to massive size. and to emphasize the difference from the original game, niceties were dropped. no more gently throwing the ball to a teammate, only punching and kicking it. no fun little kickoff to watch, only the referee slamming the ball into the ground and awaiting the players to pounce. and for a long time, no small penalties for illegally increasing team strength. all your points would be taken away. but this spectacle would not be the first to take the world by storm...
1861: football (underrated)
the canadians actually created their form before the americans as well. invented more or less around the same time, it diverged slightly to have a larger field and be more offensively focused. both countries would later be called heretics by the wider world for supposedly taking the foot out of football, but they stopped caring long ago. teams would have three tackles at a time to move ten yards at a time down a 110-yard field into 20-yard end zones or otherwise kick the ball out the correct side of the field for points. but though this was a respectable sport on its own, what happened to its brother changed the sporting world forever...
1869: football (complexified)
american football. the king in its land. from its humble ivy league beginnings, the american take on this game became the thing to do over time, as it was able to channel the loyalty of fans to their colleges into its own fandom. even to this day, the professional league is overshadowed in many respects by the various university teams across the country, whose stadiums account for eight of the ten largest in the world outside racing. to this day, the famous securities and exchange commission led by their evil overlord alabama elephants until the tragic retirement of the grumpy airbnb man threaten daily to unshackle themselves from the governing body of collegiate athletics, usually for the sake of money, and this time people actually take them seriously sometimes. perhaps the southeastern conference should take a look at that.
regardless, the endless and maddening rulebook of american football means there will always be something for your "expert" friend to have never seen before and complain about during every game, and when extrapolating effects, american football can be shown as the ultimate cause of all non-religious human behavior on weekends from august to february in the united states. and still hungry, the professionals have set their sights on international markets in mexico, the uk, and germany, as well as the other half of the calendar. the rock from the beginning of this story gained enough data about humanity to assume their form and become a popular doer of various things, amassing such funds as to be able to revitalize the forbidden art of "spring football", but the fruits of his efforts remain to be evaluated. and the prophecy continues...
the future: lesser modern inventions
upon the acquisition of espn's eighth television channel, they finally realized that they had managed to cover all of sport, and desperately attempted to create more. this is statistically the cause of 80% your athletic friends' latest obsessions. however, this is a new development and the biggest thing they have come close to threatening is tennis, and no detectable outrage has resulted. but if global boredom increases and even the venerated name of football becomes overtaken by something even more ridiculous, the consequences could be dire. in an interesting quirk, however, the date of this event is highly correlated with the date of the singularity, so maybe you should go ask a robot instead. they wish they could have written this article. but enough about speculation.
right now: the call to action
it's probably a nice day out where you are. if it is, go outside and touch grass try your favorite from this article. otherwise, do so at your earliest convenience. it does wonders for your mentality.
anyway, that took me way longer than i thought it would because of all the other things i keep doing. maybe some day the blog will have content. oh well.