There are times when it can be difficult to justify being a fan of the NFL. It’s a sport that does horrific damage to the athletes who play it, some of whom are terrible people enabled by their fame and status to continue being terrible. For fans who know all of this and feel badly about it, but who just can’t pull themselves away, continuing to root for your team can feel embarrassing at times, especially if you root for a racial slur. This is not one of those times.
Washington running back Alfred Morris, like many football players, has a pregame routine before home games, but this one doesn’t involve eating a specific food or listening to a certain song. No, Morris’ pregame ritual simply consists of chatting with a group of stadium employees in the corner of the stands a couple of hours before game time (as reported by the great Dan Steinberg).
It’s a tradition he started during preseason of his rookie year — before he became one of the most productive running backs in the NFL — when an usher asked him to stop by and chat. The rookie obliged.
“He was just a normal person, treating me like a normal person,” Morris recalled. “So I kept doing it.”
The group grew, and the conversations became a fixture of his game days. Morris learned all the staffers’s names. He kept in touch with them during the offseason. They started meeting up for all-you-can-eat crab and shrimp feasts at local restaurants. He calls them “my Stadium Fam,” and if you think there isn’t peace and happiness at FedEx Field on fall Sundays, you’ve never observed these 20-minute sessions, which start with laughter and end with a prayer.
And just like that, it got a little easier to root for the football team that plays in Landover, Maryland. It shouldn’t be a big deal, and Morris insists that it isn’t. But many people who aren’t star athletes don’t even make a point to engage people with whom they work and cultivate friendship and community. It can be hard, and there are endless excuses to avoid it. Morris, who endearingly still drives that beat-up Mazda, is by all accounts a consistently warm and open person who says and does nice things for tons of people — even ones, like rookie back Matt Jones, who might be there to take his job. He’s the kind of person who you want to watch and cheer for and pull for his success, and stories like his make everyone feel better about sticking with the NFL.
(Via the Washington Post)
