When I was a kid, I got deep into college football after I went to Neyland Stadium as an 8-year-old.
Now, I have two boys, budding Tiger fans who are more into basketball at this point. The oldest is 7. He's suddenly very keen to watch the Super Bowl. He's all in on San Francisco. The reason? Girls at school are all about TSwift, so the second grade class is now fully invested in the game and divided evenly along gender lines.
Girls really do rule the world, and the phenomenon that is Taylor Swift is so transcendent that it's sparked my kid's interest in football. I mean, the odds of all this are precisely zero, and yet here we are. It makes the Tigers winning in Chapel Hill look about as commonplace as the sun rising in the east. That was awesome, though, right? Yes. Yes it was. More likely than Taylor Swift igniting a new generation's interest in football, but still far more awesome.
When I was 3-5 years-old, we lived in Chattanooga and would go to UTC basketball games in "the roundhouse." I loved it . . . because of the nachos, the band, and watching the cheerleaders the entire game.