In this blog post, I’ll reflect on what American football meant to my college life and my life in general, and share stories about the challenges, personal growth, and the people I encountered along the way.
As a member of the Seoul National University American Football Team, I wanted to talk about the sport of “football”—known in Korean as “American football.” American football is still a relatively unfamiliar sport in South Korea. It’s a sport so unfamiliar that many people can’t even tell the difference between rugby and American football. However, the expression most commonly used to describe American football in a single word is “land grab.” I believe this expression best captures the essence of the sport. In this sport, you never look back. You must run forward and keep moving forward. As the name suggests, the distinctive character of American sports is clearly evident.
Looking at the origins of American football, it developed based on rugby and soccer, which were introduced from Europe, and the 1869 game between Princeton University and Rutgers University in the United States is widely recognized as its beginning. It subsequently spread rapidly, centered around Ivy League universities, and has now established itself as one of the most popular sports in the NCAA, which represents American college sports. In my personal opinion, one of the reasons football has gained such immense popularity in the United States is that it has long grown alongside the culture of prestigious universities. As an aside, there have been players from Harvard University and Stanford University who have gone on to play in the NFL.
American football is a sport played on a field 100 yards long and approximately 53⅓ yards wide, where two teams of 11 players each take turns on offense and defense, advancing toward the opposing team’s end zone. The offensive team must gain 10 yards within four downs, while the defensive team must stop them. The primary methods of offense are the pass—throwing the ball—and the rush—carrying the ball forward. The offensive lineup is centered around the quarterback, who holds the ball and either passes or runs; it also includes offensive linemen who protect the quarterback and block the opposing defense, wide receivers who catch passes, and running backs who carry the ball forward. For the record, I was a wide receiver. Defensive positions can be divided into defensive linemen, who face off against the opposing offensive line; linebackers, who cover the area behind them; and defensive backs, who primarily intercept passes.
As you can see from sports news coverage, American football is a very intense sport. Unlike other sports, that intensity itself is a defining characteristic and an essential element of the game. When watching an actual game, you realize that players must play even more boldly and passionately to shift the momentum of the game and elicit a response from the fans. In fact, before taking the field, our team always reaffirms our determination to defeat the opponent. The opposing team likely does the same. Due to this intense nature, the NFL currently has fewer games per season compared to other major professional sports leagues.
A prime example is Hines Ward, who is widely known even in South Korea. Born to a Korean mother and an American father, he was a wide receiver who played for the Pittsburgh Steelers. Hines Ward wasn’t famous simply because he was of Korean descent. He was a player who was deeply loved in the United States for his dedicated play and outstanding leadership. Another notable figure is Tom Brady, who is regarded as one of the greatest quarterbacks in NFL history. He played for the New England Patriots and the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, amassing numerous championships and records. While he was loved by many fans for his outstanding skills as well as his good looks, I believe his overwhelming performance on the field was the biggest reason for his fame today. The phrase “his passes were truly a work of art” fit him perfectly.
The reason I took up American football—a sport that’s so intense and particularly popular in the U.S.—was because I thought it was a special sport that could only be experienced when I was young, and in South Korea, only during my college years. As someone who loved new experiences, I went directly to the American football club and joined. My first impression of the Seoul National University American Football Club was truly striking. My very first thought was, “Where on earth have all these huge guys been hiding on campus?” When I joined, the class of 2001 seniors were the backbone of the team; most of the linemen were over 185 cm tall and weighed more than 100 kg. I had gone there thinking it would just be a fun club activity, but it was filled with physically imposing seniors. However, their rugged appearance actually struck me as a major attraction. For some reason, I found myself wanting to be like them and looking up to them. And so, I spent the entire year of 2007 fully immersed in sports. As I trained hard alongside those impressive upperclassmen and spent time drinking with them, my military enlistment date crept up on me, and I ended up enlisting that winter.
After being discharged from the military, I began to wonder if I should really continue playing American football. It was a much tougher sport than I had expected, and it required a significant time commitment. Like most students returning to school, I was eager to focus on my studies. So, I questioned whether continuing with the sports team was the right choice. I was quietly preparing to return to school, but the members of the football team hadn’t forgotten me. They invited me to everything—from casual drinking gatherings to reunions with graduated seniors—without fail. In fact, since returning students don’t have many people to meet on campus, I was especially grateful for that consideration. Eventually, I decided to start playing again in January 2010.
That year, Seoul National University won the Seoul City University League Spring Tournament. Since it had been a long time since we’d won the Seoul City title, all the team members were overjoyed, and we shared that joy together. However, during summer training camp, I injured the ligaments in my collarbone. It wasn’t serious enough to require surgery, but I was unable to compete in that fall’s tournament. Coincidentally, our team failed to qualify for the national tournament in the fall championship that year. The injuries sustained by myself and a few other players had led to a crisis for the team. What hurt more than not making it to the national tournament was seeing the seniors from the Class of 2003 shed tears after their final college game. The thought that, had I been able to play, those seniors might have played just a few more games—and we might have been one step closer to winning the national championship, which was our shared goal—stayed with me for a long time.
As we entered the 2011 season, a new head coach joined our team. He was a Class of ’90 alumnus from our school’s Landscape Architecture Department, and there was a tradition that the American football team’s head coaching position was typically filled by alumni. The new coach had a deep love for the team, and his training sessions were correspondingly grueling. We worked out until our mouths were dry, and we were scolded a great deal. Since I was the captain of both the wide receivers and defensive backs, I was expected to take on even more responsibility. There was quite a bit of conflict between me—who wanted to enjoy the sport—and the coach, who wanted us to take it more seriously in pursuit of victory.
In 2011, we decided to forgo the spring tournament and focus solely on the fall tournament. The summer training camp took place in Yangyang, Gangwon Province, for two weeks, and the training was so intense that I wondered if this was what hell would be like. While training, I asked myself countless times, “Why on earth am I putting myself through this?” But every time I felt that way, my upperclassmen would come by, treat me to good food, share a drink with me, and offer words of encouragement; each of those small acts of kindness was a great source of comfort. Looking back, I think I loved the Seoul National University American Football Team not so much for the sport itself, but for the bonds I shared with these people—and that’s what allowed me to give it my all until the very end.
Perhaps thanks to our hard preparation, our team dominated our opponents and racked up a winning streak starting from the Seoul City preliminaries in that year’s fall tournament. In particular, the game against Yonsei University—where two of our players had suffered serious injuries during the previous year’s spring tournament—was a crucial match for both me personally and the team as a whole. The joy was all the greater because we were able to secure the victory thanks to the 30-yard touchdown I scored in that game. Whenever we seniors got together for drinks, we’d each talk about the best game of our lives, and for me, that game was definitely the best of my life.
After advancing through the preliminaries and winning the semifinals, with only the Seoul City Championship final remaining, I began to feel persistent pain in my left knee one day. I didn’t think much of it and went to a hospital near school, where I was diagnosed with a torn ACL. I was so shocked and flustered that I insisted it couldn’t be true—I was walking just fine and could even run—but the MRI results pointed to a torn ACL. Hoping it might be a misdiagnosis, I visited a renowned orthopedic clinic the next day for another examination, but I received the same diagnosis.
In that moment, the world turned yellow, and my mind went completely blank. I’d been injured last year too, and now I was facing the same ordeal again this year—I simply couldn’t understand why this kept happening to me. That evening, I cried and drank a lot of alcohol. The physical pain was hard to bear, but what was even more unbearable was the fact that, despite having prepared so hard, I wouldn’t be able to play in another important game. With the championship game just around the corner, I was in such a mental state that I couldn’t even participate properly in practice. Eventually, after consulting with the coach, I ended up playing in the championship game as a backup rather than a starter.
Our opponent in the championship game was Hankuk University of Foreign Studies. Perhaps because their team had many experienced players, they seemed much more composed than we were in managing the game. After playing just a few downs, I mainly took on the role of relaying plays and instructions to the younger wide receivers and defensive backs. But to be honest, they were such a strong team that even if I had been in peak physical condition and played the full game, victory would have been far from guaranteed. In the end, we had to settle for second place in the Seoul City Championship. I was left with a lingering sense of regret, thinking that if my physical condition had been just a little better, I could have played a game with no regrets.
That effectively brought my season to a close, and I had to watch the team from the sidelines at the national tournament without being able to play. Our first opponent at the national tournament was Dong-A University in Busan, and unfortunately, we lost by a single point. Many players were injured in that game as well, and for some of my seniors, it turned out to be their final game of their college careers. I finally underwent surgery after the semester ended in December of that year.
After the surgery, I had to focus entirely on rehabilitation, so I couldn’t play American football at all. Naturally, my involvement with the football team dwindled, and an indescribable sense of emptiness filled my heart for a long time. With only one or two semesters left in college, I find myself wondering if I’ll ever be able to play again. But seeing that I’m still writing about football like this, I guess I still have a lot of lingering regret. I want to return to the field and coordinate plays and compete alongside my underclassmen, peers, and upperclassmen.
Although this sport brought me countless injuries and pain, it also accompanied me through half of my college life and taught me to always carry the word “passion” in my heart. Every time I played, I would always keep the phrase “It’s not just a game” etched in my mind. For me—and for our team—American football was truly more than just a sport; it held a meaning that went far beyond that.
