Football, more than any other sport I’ve encountered, requires a community. I believe it’s one of those ‘everything is everything’ kind of things. It’s the size of the roster. It’s the importance of fourth-string players in practice.
It’s the fans screaming.
It’s the money.
It’s the temperature and texture of the air on gameday.
It’s the distance from the nearest metropolitan center.
It’s the view from the cheap seats of the stadium, and it’s the number of not-so-cheap seats available for purchase.
It’s the willingness of family and friends and strangers to go out of their way to help a player, trainer, coach, coaches’ wife, chef, GA, team doctor, assistant athletic director and/or any of the hundreds of people a football team needs to function.