As I watched the outstretched arms of “the Gronker” (née Rob Gronkowski, the Goliath-sized New England tight end with hands the size of flat-screen TVs) poised to haul in Tom Brady’s desperation Hail Mary pass at the end of Super Bowl XLVI , I heard myself (I admit) pronounce the name of God. (Modified by an adjective that I cannot bring myself to admit).
My hunch is that 120 million or so Americans — believers and nonbelievers alike — were invoking sacred and/or profane words right along with me as time ran down. Why is it that the experience of football is so bound up with religion?
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