雅思口语高频话题参考答案--A sport (you'd like to play or watch)(4)

American football is a sport played by two teams of eleven players on a rectangular field with goalposts at each end. It is about advancing with the ball down the field and is full offense and defense.

I know it from an American drama call Friday Light about a small Texas town crazy about football held on every Friday. It is like a public holiday for every one there. I was deeply moved by the festive atmosphere and the honourable sportsmanship.

American football is much more akin to chess than it is to soccer, and it is the mental aspect of it that is most interesting to me.

Team A has a running back who is an all-world talent.  Team B has to try and stop him somehow.  So they can try to do that with numbers, or with scheme, or both.  Then Team A can counter that move with their own.

Look at the number of football games where a team scores few points in the first half, something like 3 or 7 points, but then their final total is 24 or 31 points.  Did the offensive players get better at halftime?  No, usually it’s because of some pretty interesting strategic changes.

A few years ago I was watching the sports channel in the middle of summer. They were replaying the Virginia Tech vs. University of Miami game from 2002. No one would be talking about this game years later except for the kid’s parents and a few close friends. But here I was, in my boxers in the middle of July, killing time on a game that was almost seven years old at the time, just jumping out of my seat. I couldn’t believe what I just saw. Not just the thrill of this meaningless moment, but the fact a kid could jump in with all the odds against him and just make that one throw. If you want to know whether sports is worth watching for reasons other than leisure or excitement, there’s your answer. This little nugget that I happened to stumble upon completely by accident, of no consequence to the game or season, which is so completely representative of the world of sports, and by extension, life: you get out there and you play.