Fox 28’s Nadia Crow is doing a story tonight about the return of high school football and what it means to people who have been struggling recently in this down economy.

For tens of millions of people across America, the beginning of the football season is a lot like the first day of spring. Check out any sports bar around 12:45 pm on a fall Sunday afternoon, and you will see a sea of jerseys wrapped around the (often rotund) bodies of rabid football fans.

Many of those jerseys, though, will belong to women. Probably more than you’d guess. In fact, the NFL tells us that nearly half its fans are female. So why do so many wives and girlfriends across the country dread the start of the season?

These “football widows,” as they’re known, trudge through September, October, November, December and, yes, January (playoffs, baby) knowing that Sundays are no-fundays. Not for them, anyway. Their husbands and boyfriends plop in front of the television at 1o’clock and don’t move a muscle (except for their thumbs on the remote control) until the prime time game is over at 11:30.

And it’s even worse now thanks to fantasy football. Now, guys want to watch every game, not just the one involving their favorite team. It’s enough to make a football widow want to blow the whistle and call illegal procedure.

I should know. My wife’s a football widow. I even gave up college football for her when we started dating and have stuck to it for the most part. But that means nothing come Sunday morning, when she knows I’m about to be as helpful and attentive around the house as a 13-year-old boy with a new Xbox.

Ours is a particularly bad case. You see, my wife literally wasn’t sure what a touchdown was when we started dating. And I’d be willing to bet she couldn’t even begin to explain what a first down is even now. To make matters worse, despite my efforts to get her interested, she has no desire to learn. To her, watching grown men play sports on television is about as interesting as a Dick Cavett rerun. She says the only way she’ll ever get interested in sports is if our daughter starts to play when she gets older.

Ah, our two-year-old daughter… my secret weapon. She’s old enough now that she will sit in front of the TV and watch sports if she’s interested. Fortunately, for me, she seems to like just about every sport there is. She even watched the final round of the PGA Championship with me last week. If I can get her to watch football with me, this season (and future seasons) will go so much more smoothly.

So that’s my plan. I don’t like that my wife is a football widow any more than she does. But if that’s the way it’s going to be, the least I can do is turn it into some quailty time with my daughter.

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