Personal Introduction
My name is Eytan and I was born in Israel in 1963. As a kid I played mostly Soccer but also basketball, Volleyball and handball. I also visited England, Australia and South Africa and got introduced to Rugby and also to Australia Rules Football.
The first American Football game that I ever watched was probably the Super Bowl between the 49er against the Miami Dolphins in January 1985 (although, I did not realize who they were at the time). I say watched but in reality I was dozing in and out of sleep and every time I woke up I was wondering when will they stop standing around talking and start playing.
My impression was that it was a boring game. The one thing I do remember from that game was my surprise that a state such as Montana would have one of the best teams. After all, I imagined that the best teams would come from the major cities.
They did explain the rules in Hebrew during that specific broadcast. However, they failed to excite myself, my family or any of my friends.
In this regard I must say that the National Football League (NFL) boost about the amount of people around the world who watch the Super Bowl (I believe about a billion around the world). However, I am not sure if they are aware of how easier it is, with the wrong approach, to convert people against the game than into loving the game. I doubt if they even have a ratio statistic. In any case, I believe that that attempt in Israel in 1985 was not a successful one.
That was my ONLY attempt in watching Football for years. Even during my first ever visit to the USA in 1987 I made no attempt in watching the game or even learning about it.
It was only around 1988, when I watched the video clip of "Walk Of Life" by the Dire Straits that I saw for the first time Football as something exciting - probably because they took all the standing around and talking out of the clip.
In any case, it was obvious even from this very short clip that Football is different from Rugby. I remember that what caught my eyes the most was the touchdown scored by Roger Craig towards the end of the clip. That was nothing like anything I saw in Rugby.
Therefore, during my second visit to the USA in 1989 I decided to give Football a second chance. That time I moved to San Francisco Bay Area. You can imagine the people' reaction when I asked whatever there is a good Football team in the area. The San Francisco 49ers was the biggest thing in the area at the time.
I watched a game with some friends. It was only then, that I realized that the game I watched few years earlier was of the 49ers with Joe Montana as their Quarterback and not a team from the state of Montana.
My biggest change of attitude towards the game was when I realized that the game has very sophisticated strategies and it was never supposed to be a continuous game. Once I overcame that hurdle, the game made a lot of sense to me and I fell in love with the game. I became a big fan of the game - and especially of the 49ers - during the 1989 season.
I also had the experience of living for almost a year in International Hostel where I befriended many Europeans, Australians and South Americans - mostly fans of Soccer. I had the chance to explain the game to hundreds of them and even took few dozens of friends to watch their first games (49ers tickets were hard and expansive to get. Therefore, I took them to watch one of the two major college teams in the area).
My experience taught me that just teaching someone the rules is counterproductive because they would mostly be bored by the game. It is only by triggering their curiosity by explaining the unique principles of the game that turns them into watching the game. I usually would not even explain the rules to them until we sit and watch the game.
In 1995 I went to Israel for a family wedding and met family members from South Africa, Australia, Europe and obviously Israel. At that point, I was able to explain the game to them and got quite a few of them hooked on the game.
It was during that visit that I wrote a short book about the very basic principles of Football from a point of view of Soccer and Rugby fans. It was more of a hobby than of professional desires. Even though I never had the marketing backup to make the book successful, I received very warm reviews from the few hundred foreigners (from all over the world) who did read it. I still believe that for its niche, this is the best book out there.
This book was not written by a game expert. Its unique feature, that I am proud of, is that it was written by one who understands the foreigners' basic attitude towards the game and cares to change it. I am proud to say that I added many more fans to the game.
