Why You, Anon, Should Love NFL Football

Parasocial War

Richard Nixon talked constantly and feverishly about NFL football—one of the ways he won people over, including Hunter S. Thompson.

“Whatever else might be said about Nixon – and there is still serious doubt in my mind that he could pass for Human – he is a goddamn stone fanatic on every facet of pro football,” describes Thompson in Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail (1972).

Thompson, also die hard, bonds with his sworn enemy on the bus, where he’s been mandated to discuss football and football alone.

“At one point in our conversation, I was feeling a bit pressed for leverage, I mentioned a down & out pass—in the waning moments of the 1967 Super Bowl mismatch between Green Bay and Oakland—to an obscure second-string Oakland receiver named Bill Miller that had stuck in my point because of its pinpoint style & precision. [Nixon] hesitated for a moment, lost in thought, then he whacked me on the thigh & laughed: “That’s right, by God! The Miami boy!” I was stunned. He not only rememb…