Calvin and Hobbes football

Another kids' favorite was jumping off the second floor deck.

Nike has a new commercial in which several NFL players gather on a snow day to play a pickup game of football in a snowstorm. In the last interchange they have split into teams and one guy asks "Touch?" and a player on the opposing team says "Tackle."

My son and I used to play football in the snow. You see, when you live in the town that regularly endures the largest yearly snowfall in the country, if you want to play football in season you are pretty much going to have to play in the snow.

In our game, we had to have snow

at least thigh deep on a 10-year-old. We called it Calvin and Hobbes football. Basically you tossed the ball to someone and that boy had to try to score a touchdown while everyone else tried to stop him. There was only one other rule. The defenders could change the location of the goal line any time during the game without telling the runner.

A game might go like this, which happened when a young friend of ours came over for the day. We hyped the game enough so he demanded to play. So three of us in our snow gear – enough padding to prevent injury even without the snow – took a ball and went out into the yard. 

We stood for a moment until the friend asked, what do we do now?

So I tossed him the ball and told him to score a touchdown.

He looked around and then asked where the goal line was.

My son pointed in the general direction of the back yard and said, "over there."

When we say snow we mean snow. The day before this photo there was 

barely an inch of snow on the ground. It didn't even cause a school snow day.

Our friend looked a little confused but took off in the deep snow.

We chased for a bit and then jumped him, all three of  us rolling around in the deep snow.

Once he was thoroughly tackled he asked if he had scored and I told him no. we moved the goal line.

What?

Yeah it's over there now.

He was befuddled. I noticed while we were all struggling to get to our feet the two boys whispering to each other. We stood up for the next play. The friend tossed me the ball, but he threw it high, just high enough so I had to look up to follow it into my hands.

Before the ball even came down both boys hit me at once, knocking me down into the snow and letting the ball bounce off us.

Fumble! my son yelled and then we looked.  No one could see where the ball went. I finally saw the hole in the snow where it had gone down and leaped for it. I shouldn't have. Getting there first meant both boys piling on.

My son rose out of that scrum with the ball and headed off for the big tree. At that I showed our friend how to play defense. We ran a few yards in the opposite direction and then got down into a lineman's stance, our chins just above the level of the snow. Just as my son went into his touchdown dance, we yelled out that the goal line was now behind us and he was going to have to go through us to get there.

The games would go on like that often ending in an argument along the lines of, "I scored a touchdown." "I moved the goal line." "I moved it back." "Anybody want hot chocolate?"

I often wondered what the mothers thought when their sons came home exhausted, their snowsuits soaked through and trying to explain Calvin and Hobbes football to them.

Here's the Nike version: